


Transfer Function

by aria0205



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Developing Relationship, Errant Plot with Porn, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pseudoscience, Rookie Ranger Problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:39:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aria0205/pseuds/aria0205
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Marshal used to warn Mako about men like Raleigh Becket. He's right.  Just not in the way anyone thinks. Fast and loose AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started as a kink meme prompt that went off the rails and picked up a pretense of plot. It semi-follows the movie until the confrontation with Leatherback and Otachi then veers off and picks up a different endgame. Obligatory caveats include that I have not read the novelization and have played fast and loose with details of...everything. There's a lot of headcanon and pseudoscience here. If anything here makes sense and flows, it's because of my beta, strageallure's kind hand. All mistakes and discontinuities are mine. Many thanks for reading!

The Marshal used to warn Mako about men like Raleigh Becket. Reckless men who had the world in the palm of their hand until one day everything was gone. Then they'd be even more reckless.

Reckless men die.

"You're not reckless," Mako would say. 

"No, and I'm alive.” The Marshal did not miss a beat. “I'd like you to stay that way too.”

\--

"I don't think he's reckless," Mako speaks up after the Marshal has given her permission to enter his quarters.

"Who?"

"Raleigh Becket. I don't think he's reckless anymore."

He continues looking at the reports.

"The loss of his brother ... it changed him. I think he'll be more cautious now."

"Mm." The Marshal doesn't look up from the stack of papers. "Good."

"It's not," she says somewhat stridently, and the Marshal looks up. 

He leans back in a deceptively relaxed posture. "Why wouldn't his new caution be a positive development? Couldn't it be a sign that he has matured?"

Mako lowers her eyes. She knows he's testing her. She's used to it, even looks forward to it most days.

"A pilot flies through instinct," she recites. "A pilot needs to follow their nature. They need to mold their nature in accordance to the needs of the battle."

A faint smile tugs at the corner of Marshal Stacker Pentecost’s lips. He folds his hands on the desk, interlacing his fingers. "That's a theory, anyway."

"Your theory," Mako is smiling herself.

"But what does it have to do with Mr. Becket?" he prods.

"I choose the candidates based on that principle." She grows more serious as she continues. "Cadets that err on the side of caution to balance him out. But if that's not Mr. Becket anymore..."

"Are you saying you made a mistake?" 

She shakes her head. "No, just that I'm...less certain of my choices now."

"Then we'll just have to see, tomorrow."

\--

Mako can't sleep, so she walks down to the Kwoon combat room and goes through several iado forms. She has just begun to break a sweat when she feels someone watching her. In one of the standard moves she turns around and smoothly practices a sheathing move.

Becket whistles. "You're good at that."

She lowers her eyes and smiles. "Thank you."

"You were showing off."

The smile leaves her lips and she looks up. "I-I wasn't!" she stammers.

He raises his hands. "Okay, okay, sorry." A beat of silence passes between them. "Not...not even a little?" he presses lightly.

"Maybe a little," she concedes, inwardly cringing. She doesn't quite know why she admits this. She turns to leave the room.

"You flunked me on a character assessment just a few hours ago and now you're embarrassed?" Mako can hear the humor in his voice. 

She doesn't turn around, but she stops. "You asked what I thought. I told you."

"And you knew I was watching. You sure you're not one of the candidates?"

She shakes her head. "Good night, Mr. Becket."

\--

Ralei—Becket, she corrects mentally-- starts knocking on her door scarcely ten minutes after the Marshal dismisses her. Mako considers simply not opening, but the knocks get increasingly louder and show no signs of stopping. 

She’s been crying like she hasn’t in years and hating every minute of it. To make it worse, there’s all sorts of random images, textures, feelings that she doesn’t recognize in her head. 

Mako lets the knocking continue for about a minute, until she hears some annoyed cries from the neighboring rooms.

She opens the door mid-knock, his hand frozen maybe a foot above her head. A muscle twitches in his cheek. “Thought maybe you were ignoring me or something.”

She sits and crosses her arms over her chest. “I was.”

He looks genuinely confused. “Why?”

“Because I’m fine. That’s what you came for, right? To see how I’m doing?”

“Yeah, Mako—“

“I don’t need you protecting me,” she snaps in Japanese. “Not to that asshole, and especially, not to the Marshal. And I don’t need you taking responsibility for things that are _my_ fault.”

“It wasn’t your—“

She switches to English and gestures to the door. “Thank you for coming to check on me, Mr. Becket.”

He smiles humorlessly and reaches for her wrist. “Listen, Mako, we—“

Mako breaks the hold easily and slams her open palm against his chest, pushing him back a step. “Out.”

Her expression must convince him, because he goes through the doorway. He turns to say something, but she slams the door before he can so much as open his mouth.

\--

Mako wonders if it’s the lingering effects of the drift that push her to the Marshal’s quarters near midnight. She feels like a walking tangle of nerves as she knocks twice. His voice invites her in.

He’s still poring over reports. She can count on one hand the times she’s found him idle.

“I didn’t get a chance to apologize,” she says. Mako closes her eyes and bows deeply. Part of her wants to touch her forehead against the floor, but the Marshal would think it too much. It’d make him uncomfortable. “Moushiwake gozaimasen.” The words come out cracked.

“I told you it was my mistake,” the Marshal says. “You’re too inexperienced to control your memories in the drift.”

“I disappointed you.”

The Marshal’s hands are at her forearms, gently pulling her up. “Don’t say unnecessary things,” he murmurs in Japanese. The words have a bite to them, but he follows them up in English. “You don’t disappoint me, ever. Experience can be gained.”

She looks up at him in surprise. 

“Now, I’m not saying it will be the next kaiju, but Becket’s not wrong about you.”

“Maybe I learned from the best.” She stifles a smile at the praise.

The Marshal ducks his head. “Maybe. But it’s late, Miss Mori, and I fully expect a report on the test run today by mid-morning tomorrow.”

All impulse to smile is gone at the thought. “Yes, sir.”

\-- 

Mako gets to the mess hall late, but the report is on the Marshal’s desk. She steps into an awkwardly silent room with her tray, Becket opposite of her, holding his own. The look on his face is two-thirds sullen, one-third hopeful. She approaches slowly.

“I know of a better place to sit,” she says loud enough for everyone to hear and strides out with her tray. 

The Gipsy Danger comes into view and she looks over to Becket. “Is this okay?” she asks.

He nods, eyes drawn to his—their Jaeger. “This is…great.”

She sits by the edge and stabs a straw into the juice carton. 

“Are you still angry?” he asks.

Mako looks up. “I’m not angry. It’s enough that the Marshal…worries about me. I don’t need to have you worry too. I shouldn’t have snapped. I was just…frustrated.” 

He nods, but says, “You’re my copilot, worrying is kind of part of the job.” He catches her narrowed eyes and laughs. “I get it. I get it. No worrying. Next time you want to deck Chuck on my behalf, have at it.”

She smiles. “You’re a good guy, Raleigh.”

He chuckles at that, but turns serious. “What I wanted to say last night is that I’m sorry. I should have warned you, first drifts are rough. You weren’t just tapping into my memories. You were also tapping into my brother’s.”

Mako knows. She’s tried not to give the drift too much thought outside the cockpit. It seems too intrusive otherwise. She’s always been good at compartmentalizing.

\--

Turns out it _is_ the next kaiju contrary to what the Marshal said. With the comms in all but the Gipsy Danger shot due to kaiju evolution, the Marshal has no choice. 

It’s everything Mako dreams of. In the end, there’s a kaiju shot open and another sliced in half. The whole hangar claps for them, the Marshal says he’s proud, but the clock is reset. 

Her whole body aches, but the adrenaline coursing through her makes it all seem like a fever dream. 

She changes and goes to knock on Raleigh’s door, fully intending to announce that this time he should do the paperwork for the mission. He opens on the first knock, having traded the drivesuit for pants, but lacking a shirt. Somehow she ends up kissing him and his lips are softer than she expected.

“Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but what was that?” he asks, confused.

She shakes her head, wishing she was braver. “You talk too much,” is all she ends up saying before she leaves.

Mako ends up writing the report.

\--

The next mission doesn’t go quite as smoothly.

The kaiju are evolving faster than the scientists can predict. The Gipsy takes twice as long in taking down the second, and it almost destroys a civilian camp.

It’s the elder Hansen who does their debrief, short and brutal.

“Unacceptable, rangers” he says. “Somewhere between the first mission and this one, your timing is off. For both of you. We can’t afford that. One more miss and there would have been thousands of casualties. The Marshal wants a full account of what went wrong. And if we can ground you for the next kaiju, we will. We’re the last defense remaining. The whole world is watching.” 

Mako trudges beside Raleigh on the way back to their corridor, mentally going over the fight. 

“It’s me,” Raleigh says quietly. “I hesitated too much.”

She figured as much. “I should have balanced you out. But with your experience…your calculations seemed sound. Conservative, but sound.”

“You thought you could give me the benefit of the doubt.” He’s grim when he says it. “Guess you can’t.”

Mako nods. She speaks without thinking, “Would you like to do a simulation?”

He laughs without any humor. “A simulation?” It dawns on her it could be an indignity for someone of his experience.

“I’m so—“

He waves the apology away. “No, if you think that would help, sure.”

\--

Mako doesn’t mention simulations again. They don’t go out in the next mission, but in the one after that, Crimson Typhoon has a hard time with a category four and they’re strapping in.

They’re in the drift and Mako feels Raleigh’s concern, his uncertainty.

“Sorry,” he says out loud.

 _It’s not necessary._ Unlike him, she prefers not to speak when the drift is initiated. Me, you and the Gipsy Danger are one. I can be sure for all of us.

They arrive just in time to see the kaiju pick up a building, about to slam it on the Jaeger prostrate below. They grab the kaiju by the neck and the building collapses on top of it. The creature screams, falling back. The Gipsy takes a defensive position in front of Crimson Typhoon.

“Gotta get it away from her!” Raleigh yells out. They guide the Gipsy forward, landing several blows on the kaiju.

 _Not enough distance_. 

The kaiju screeches, opening its cavernous mouth. 

“If it barfs up acid, we’re in trouble.” She latches onto an image in his mind: severing the kaiju’s tongue. The acid would hurt the wound, make it hard for the kaiju to spit it out without pain. 

_Dental work?_

Mako feels his smile. “Dental work.”

They bring out the sword, controls reducing it to rapier length. The kaiju darts forward and they reach to grab its snout. It all seems too convenient.

“No, Mako! If its skin is too tough it gets the advantage! We’re too close!”

_On my count._

She feels Raleigh temper his irritation, feels him fall into line, a single push of purpose melding with her own. The thrust was a perfect synchrony of force as the rapier hits the roof of the creature’s toothy mouth. At the background, Mako feels it yank her shoulder, pulling her forward. She continues pushing the blade in, over the eruption of pain at her shoulder, the snaps of light in her vision.

“Sword!” she screams out and the A.I. extends the blade. Gravity does its work and the sword tears through bone and muscle as the Gipsy falls, letting all of its weight crash on top of it. She ends up propped up by the sword, breathing hard, with the kaiju prone below.

Mako’s nerves are still on edge as she pulls out the blade, wincing as it jars her shoulder. 

“Crimson Typhoon, report,” Tendo’s voice blares through the comm. “Give me a full extent run down of the damages?”

Static for a couple of seconds. “We’re going to need pilot extraction level 2. Cheung will make it, but he’s…not good.” 

Level 2. Critical condition.

The voice continues detailing a long list of damages to the Jaeger. “Crimson will probably be out for a while. Sorry.”

The frustration bubbles inside her. The kaiju are increasingly dangerous, their attacks multiplying, they can’t possibly, _can’t possibly_ afford to have a Jaeger out that long. People will die. _They’re the only line of defense_ and no one else is helping! _They’re watching, just watching us die. Watching!_

“Watching them come close to dying while they dream fairy tales of bullshit walls—“ 

“Gipsy! Gipsy! What are you doing, Gipsy!”

It’s the blinding pain from her shoulder that brings her back, and she realizes she’s been hacking away at the dead kaiju. Its head is severed from its massive body. She stabs it clean through. Lifts it up, with a pained yell over the throb.

“What else do they need?” she screams. “What the fuck do they need?”


	2. Chapter 2

Raleigh dashes to her side, putting his hand over her arm. Without the drift, the pain flares up and Mako grits her teeth. 

“Could be a dislocation,” he murmurs.

“I hope not,” she manages to squeeze out, steadying herself. 

The Marshal is waiting for them in the drivesuit room, and she knows it’s not going to be good. “Any particular reason why you felt compelled to put on a show, Rangers?”

Her arm has begun to feel a little numb and she moves it experimentally. The pain cuts her through her breathing and she narrowly keeps herself from wincing. She focuses on the Marshal’s stern expression.

“It looked,” the Marshal continues. “Like loss of control. I shouldn’t have to remind either of you that this is a problem in a two thousand ton Jaeger!” He lowers his voice. “Both of you -- of all people -- should know you’re not in control of infinite resources. You won’t so much as step into a Jaeger conn-pod until further notice!” His gaze zeroes in on Mako’s arm and her stomach sinks. “The readings indicated a mild arm injury.”

“Yes, sir,” she says.

“And still you decide on theatrics. You looked like children, not Rangers. Medical bay is expecting you. Dismissed!”

“Sir?” Raleigh says tentatively.

“What?” 

“Cheung. How’s he doing?” 

“He’s alive.”

“Can he pilot?” Raleigh presses and Mako holds her breath.

“Not for a while.” The pressure in her chest eases up a bit at the news. “Is that all?”

“Yes, sir.”

\--

Raleigh follows her to medical bay, uncharacteristically silent. They x-ray her shoulder, give her painkillers, and have her lie down while they go look at the results.

“You’re not going to say anything?” she says when she and Raleigh are alone. She means to make her tone light, like last time, but it comes out off somehow, strained. “I’m not in your head anymore, so…”

His smile is fatigued. “Painkillers help some?”

She makes an exasperated sound and says in Japanese, “You’re avoiding the subject.”

His expression becomes tight. “I’m not. I just don’t think that now is the time to hash it out.”

Mako switches to English and sits up using her good arm, pain blasts from her shoulder and she winces. “Hash what out?”

He sighs and sits on the edge of the cot, shifting to face her. “The drift amplifies the good and the bad. You tapped into my head, saw what my brother saw and it threw you off. I tapped into yours and you’re just adapting to combat stress–“ he breaks off and looks away.

Mako stays quiet.

“I felt—feel-- like that too,” he finally admits, meeting her eyes. “I wanted to rub it in their faces that we succeed where the walls fails. We save people. But it should have been just an impulse.”

She nods. “It’s my fault.”

He mirrors her nod. “I should have checked you, but—“

“You didn’t think you’d have to.”

His brow furrows. “Didn’t think I’d need to. I was blindsided.”

Mako looks at her hands. It’s not embarrassment, really. Just disappointment, a hollow feeling of insufficiency. Fall seven times, she thinks with a set of her jaw. Rise up eight.

“Seems like we’re still getting used to each other,” he says gently. 

She leans forward slightly on her good arm. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, cupping her cheek. His lips brush against her temple and she remembers kissing him. She’d accounted for it through the drift and leftover adrenaline, but when he brings his lips to hers it feels more deliberate than the last time. And reassuring. He pulls away slightly and she blinks, trying to sort out her own mess of feelings from the ghost of him in her head.

He’s looking at her as if he can read her thoughts. “Just stress behavior?” 

Kissing him is better than dealing with everything, so she chooses that route. She indulges until the throbbing in her shoulder becomes a dull ache leaving her lightheaded and warm. She pulls away slowly.

“Combat stress?” he prods again.

"I don't know." She sighs and lies back on the cot. “After effects of the drift?” 

“Maybe. It was with my brother before, so it make sense that it feels ...different this time around. Maybe it’s both.” 

“The affective link is different.” Mako tries to think back to her training. 

"Stress response can merge with a sexual response," Raleigh says evenly. “After every mission, Yancy would use the free time to fuc-- sleep with anything with a pulse. His approach to an adrenaline crash.” His expression brightens and he shakes his head. “Not that I wanted to know. Ever.”

Mako cocks her head and attempts to focus over the fuzziness at the edge of her vision. Images of a smiling man with Raleigh’s eyes surface bracketed by affection bordering on admiration. Not mine, she thinks. Not my memory. She looks up at the ceiling. They must have given her a high dose, since the pain has mostly receded. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to untangle her thoughts, but she’s able to find her place in the conversation. “And you?”

“Me what?”

It takes her a moment to remember her line of thinking. She fishes it out with pure tenacity. Feels victorious when she does. “Fuck anything with a pulse.” The lights overhead seem too bright and she closes her eyes.

Raleigh laughs beside her. “I wanted to. I was eighteen when I enlisted.”

“I don’t want to have sex with you, Raleigh,” Mako mutters, feeling as if she’s floating. She hears him snort and turns her head towards him, opening her eyes. He looks like he’s trying really hard not to burst out laughing. She should feel annoyed, but it’s just a light prick in her newfound state of well-being. “I don’t.” She’s smiling without meaning to. “My shoulder hurts too much.”

\--

The arm injury is nothing serious and she has full use of her arm back after a few days, but the adrenaline still hasn’t left her system and she throws herself into repairs. New shipments of top-of-the-line material begin arriving at the Shatterdome shortly after the last drop. She furrows her eyebrows as she sees the crews begin to open the shipments while she’s going over her Jaeger’s diagnostics. Concentration on the details of the Gipsy’s system distracts her from feeling as if she can’t stand still.

Somewhat. “What’s that?” she finally asks Choi. 

He looks over from his screen. “You haven’t read the paper?” His voice is tight and she’s been avoiding interrupting him for the past day. The first two days he had been in good spirits, attempting to cajole her into taking things easy. After that, he had stopped hiding his irritation at having to deal with both overseeing the distribution of new parts and Mako’s unending flurry of new designs. She’s wondered more than once how close he is to banning her from mission control.

She shakes her head and he gestures her over impatiently, fingers flying across the keyboard. The page comes up and she covers her mouth instinctively.

It’s _them_. The Gipsy, sword held high, kaiju head on it. Below there are block letters: Jaegers Still Best Line of Defense.

She looks back to Choi who can’t help breaking into a grin. “Hell of an image. Kaiju kabob. Chuck is pissed. I kinda want to frame it.”

Mako looks out again to the hubbub of activity below. “So does this mean we’re we funded again?”

He shakes his head and closes the browser window. “Still private. Just more of it. But if we keep at it, people will be begging their governments to reopen their Shatterdomes. People will be dying there, masses will be moving here. They’ll have no choice.”

\--

The attack happens the next month and not a moment too soon. Cherno Alpha’s new upgrades have just come online, and it makes short work of its attacker in less than half an hour. She watches from mission control, deathly still where she stands. When the kaiju is confirmed dead and the crews set out to retrieve the Kaidanovskys and their Jaeger along a mostly ornamental Striker Eureka, she turns to exit the room.

Raleigh stops her with a hand over her arm just outside mission. “Where are you heading?”

She smiles shakily. “My room. To meditate or something. I—“

“--wish you were out there?”

Mako nods. “It… upsets me.” She admits it, knowing it’s written all over her and resents him a little for being able to dial the feeling back. You’d never know it if he’s just as on edge, Raleigh’s been content to do his shifts and spend his time off with the crews. She’s been invited more times than she can count, but it’s been all she can do to calm herself enough to work. The last thing she needs is Hansen berating her for her rookie nerves. It was enough he kept yammering about the Gipsy’s berserker button. Hansen started a whole week after the drop, enough time for the after effects of the drift to lessen, and Raleigh to be back to his easy going self. 

She’s not envious that he’s so centered, Mako tells herself, just grateful no other fights have broken out.

Raleigh is looking at her with concern. “Want to spar it out?”

She shakes her head. “I need to work it out here first." She touches her temple. "But thank you.” It occurs to her, he’s gone years without seeing combat and she says, “How do you…?”

Raleigh shrugs. “Wanting to be out there never goes away. You just… deal. Some people don’t like to be alone, but everyone’s different – meditation’s good.”

“Experience,” Mako says. It sounds like a dead end. She’s been meditating for weeks now and her restlessness has only gotten worse. “Right.” 

\--

When they go over the mission a day later, all the pilots are there. Even Cheung comes, although he’s still undergoing physical therapy and will be for several more months. It’s a heartening sight, but it doesn't change that the Crimson Typhoon was left behind in the hangar when the last kaiju struck-- just like the Gipsy.

Mako tries to focus on the footage playing on the screen.

Hansen’s scowl is visible even in the dim room. Striker gets there just in time for Cheno to land the killing blow. At this point, Mako’s stopped feeling petty for enjoying it.

“Suited up for nothing.” Raleigh can’t help needling from where he lounges on one of the couches and she bites back a smile.

“At least I was in a drivesuit. How long has it been since you’ve been close to one?” Hansen snaps.

The footage ends and Mako reaches for the remote to rewind it to a certain frame, tuning out their back-and-forth. She makes a note in her pad and turns around to where the Kaidanovskys are sitting. “Lt. Kaidanovsky, I notice a speed increase. Was that a result of the alloy? Could you feel it in the handling?”

“It is possible, but not probable,” Sasha Kaidanovsky replies. “But changes were made to the thermal rocket—those seem the more likely. You should speak to Bashmakov, it was his idea.”

Mako jots down the name for later, vaguely noticing the pilots shuffling out. She feels Raleigh lean over to look over her shoulder. He’s close enough that she can feel his breath along her cheek. 

“The Gipsy is fast enough,” he says, straightening up. “You oversaw the installation of the Hyper Torque Drives yourself.”

She starts on some rough calculations, drawing from the notes. “There’s always room for improvement.”

Mako tries to focus on the equation. “Improvement. Like the crazy idea you had to polish her up.”

She makes a mistake, and deletes part of the equation. “She was looking a bit…scratched. It was just an idea. And I asked your opinion.” 

“It’s a Jaeger, not a Mustang.”

“I know. You told me.” The result of her calculations doesn’t make sense. That can’t be right, she thinks, biting her lip, and erases it. Starts over.

He’s looking over her shoulder again. “You forgot the decimal point.” 

Mako raises her eyes slowly.

He gives a furtive look to the now empty room and lowers his voice. “You’re still on edge.”

She saves the document and shuts off her pad. “I’m using this time to reflect on my mistakes,” she deflects. “And to get the Gipsy Danger ready for our next drop.” 

“The Gipsy’s been ready for our next drop for weeks -- you’ve been driving Tendo crazy. These days, it’s like you need a hydrospanner or coffee cup in hand to talk to you.”

Mako slides from her seat. “I’m just not interested in cards, or basketball, or—“ She breaks off. “Actually, I’m still waiting for the feedback I asked you about the latest specs—“

“I told you—“

“In a written report, Raleigh.” She directs herself to the exit with him in tow. “The Marshal requires all communications of note be written and archived.”

“Mako,” he calls. “Wait, Mako!” He has to hurry his steps to catch up.

She stops and turns around. “And if Mr. Choi has a problem, he can tell me himself.” 

Raleigh opens his mouth, just as alarms start blaring and they’re running to mission control. They join the rush of people, edging their way to the front. 

Choi begins, “Breach was exposed at eighteen hundred hours! We have two signatures again! Category fours! Code names Tengu and Charybdis! They’ll reach Hong Kong within the hour.”

The Marshal gives his evacuation orders, then turns to the Kaidanovskys and the Hansens. “Cherno Alpha, Striker Eureka, frontline of the harbor. Gipsy Danger -- the coastline. Nothing gets through. Let’s go!”

Hansen slams into Raleigh’s shoulder on his way out. “Look who’s getting suited up for nothing now.”

Raleigh shakes his head. He and Mako turn to leave.

“One last thing, Gipsy!” the Marshal calls out behind them. “No theatrics.”


	3. Chapter 3

Suiting up feels like breathing again. She doesn’t have to be in the drift to know that Raleigh feels the same exhilaration.

“It’s only shore duty,” he says ruefully.

“But it’s like—“

“--coming home,” he finishes and grins.

Mako beams and they step into the conn-pod.

“Happy to be let out to play?” Choi’s voice blares.

Mako presses the comm button. “I heard I was driving you crazy. We should talk later.” 

“Raleigh!” his voice sounds mock-betrayed. “Can’t tell you anything, man.”

“Not like she couldn’t find out anyway,” he retorts. “Release for drop.”

The conn-pod slides down to hook up to Gipsy’s body. The engine starts, basic systems go. The Gipsy's massive body is pushed out of the Shatterdome's hangar.

Mako hits the comm. “Ready for neural handshake.”

“Fifteen…fourteen…” She closes her eyes.

“Anything I should be scared of?”

She smirks at Raleigh without opening her eyes. “You’ll know soon, right?”

“And you’re not the least bit worried about me stepping into your head.”

Mako cracks open an eye. “No. Are you?”

“Neural handshake initiating,” the A.I. announces and she inhales as her world shrinks. She’s in the Combat Room, bamboo stick in hand and Raleigh across from her, except the perspective shifts and she watches herself launch several strikes. The perspective shifts again and she’s back behind her own eyes as he meets them perfectly one by one. The memories slide into one another seamlessly.

Mako’s back in the conn-pod, Raleigh at the horizon of her consciousness and the Gipsy strikes a defensive position.

“Calibration complete.”

 _Welcome back_ , she thinks and his humor ruffles through her mind.

“Neural handshake strong and holding.”

Off in the distance she sees Cherno take the closest of the kaiju, Charybdis. It looks like an oversized octopus with an evil-looking red eye near the top. Striker goes out further into the sea to meet Tengu. The beaked kaiju’s form is like a nightmarish thundercloud in the distance. Every inch of Mako is itching to move forward. The impulse thrums like an electric current, a tingle that starts at her fingertips and spreads through her.

“Easy,” Raleigh says and the impulse lessens. “Better?”

Mako assents, eyes on the monitor. She shakes her head. _Taking Charybdis down will take too long_.

Raleigh is right there with her, works the comm. “Striker should stay with Cherno.”

“That is a negative,” Herc Hansen replies. “We can’t let two kaiju this close to the shore.”

Cherno doesn’t reply, heavily involved in the fight. It’s bashing the creature on the head, but Charybdis’ tentacles don’t let up. They slam into the top of the Jaeger repeatedly. Mako can see the steel denting under the onslaught.

“Oh, shit,” Tendo yells. “We have another signature!” 

“Look alive, Rangers. We have incoming,” Marshal’s voice barks. “Striker, you will have visual first.”

“Permission to engage, sir!” Mako calls out. 

Raleigh slaps keypad, doing a double take at the monitor. “Mission control, something’s wrong with my readings—“

“Granted! Nothing’s wrong with your readings, Gipsy,” the Marshal’s voice is grim, but even. 

Tendo’s voice is less calm. “It’s coming from above!”

“What the fuck?” Raleigh mutters as they begin moving towards the melee. The Cherno’s in a better position now with the beast in a headlock, but they can’t see Striker over the waves Cherno and Charydbis are generating. 

_We saw they could fly._ She racks her brain for the range of the plasma cannon and the pulse launcher. Her fingers fly over the screen as she runs through estimates.

“Close combat armaments,” Raleigh replies to the implicit question. “Won’t help if it’s airborne.”

“Striker, we need your rockets,” the Marshal calls. “Cherno, disengage as soon as Gipsy’s close.”

“Kind of busy here,” Chuck’s voice comes in after a moment, strained.

“It will be above you in a minute!” the Marshal shouts. 

“Coming in hot at your three o’clock!” Tendo’s voice joins in.

In front of them, Cherno engages the sparkfists, but the creature slithers away. For a second they lose sight of the Jaeger. They only see Charybdis’ tentacles flailing above the sea spray.

“Cherno! Cherno! What’s your status?” Raleigh scans the instruments. 

“Sparkfist discharged,” Aleksis Kaidanovski’s voice answers after a beat. “Charybdis stunned. Proceeding to Tengu and Striker.”

“Copy that. Happy hunting, Cherno,” Raleigh says as Mako loads up the cannon.

“Careful, Gipsy.” It’s Sasha now. “It is a slippery one.”

And just as she’s finished speaking, a tentacle splashes out towards them, wrapping itself around the Gipsy’s arm. They jerk the arm over their shoulder, pulling the creature partially out of the water.

“Sword!” Mako yells out.

“Watch the blue!” Raleigh warns, just as the sword lights up with an electric charge. They slash at the tentacle, leaving a smoking stump. 

_Improvement._

She feels his grin. “Show off.” He fires up the plasma cannon.

“Gipsy, can you put a bow on it?” Tendo calls. They can hear the Marshal in the background, talking to the other pilots. “Striker and Cherno need you.”

“Aim for the eye!” Raleigh says, continuing to discharge the cannon. Several blasts later, the kaiju lies prone and they wade through the ocean to the rest of the jaegers. “Copy. Give me an update, Tendo. What’re we going to find over there? Is the flyer down?”

“It’s down, but alive. Striker’s incurring heavy damages. Cherno’s not doing so well either.”

They’re close enough to see Cherno use sparkfist on the flyer. The creature lets out a deafening cry and collapses, sinking into the ocean.

Tengu, the remaining kaiju, seems to notice from where it’s busily smashing its snout against the top of Striker, dangerously close to the conn-pod. It echoes its comrade’s cry, takes a step back and divides into two smaller versions of itself.

Mako blinks and freezes for a second in spite of herself. _It can’t be!_

“Rangers, report, we’re getting two readings, but the breach shows no movement!”

“It just…divided!” Raleigh replies, as they try to run even faster. “Tell Chuck and Herc to get out!”

“What do you mean, it divided?”

Mako scans their diagnostics. _We’re low on ammunition. We’re going to have to take it down with the sword_.

“Like a lizard tail!” She can feel Raleigh’s urgency feeding her own as they plow through the waves. “Except the whole thing. Like a cell that divided. Replicated! We need to get the others out.” 

Striker is sandwiched between the two kaiju, sparks scattering everywhere. They catch sight of Cherno cutting through the waves, perpendicular to them. Cherno is closer than they are to Striker, but still too.

“Negative. They’re too far from the shore for extraction,” the Marshal’s voice is tight. “We’d lose them and risk another crew.”

“Then call Cherno back!” Raleigh turns to Mako. “How much ammo do we have?”

 _Five rounds_. She runs the numbers again. _At this distance we won’t hit it. Not from here._

“We don’t have to.”

They keep running, firing in the general direction until the clip runs out. The blasts distract the kaiju, long enough for Cherno to arrive. Cherno gets to work, crashes its charged fist against one of the creatures, sending it sprawling back with a screech, the electricity making it glow. Cherno forcibly pulls the other creature off Striker, flinging it away in their direction, but still too far for them to engage. 

Cherno pulls Striker up. Even from this distance, Striker’s breastplate shows heavy damage. It’s partly ripped and the Jaeger stands unsteadily, Cherno propping it up. The Russian Jaeger begins moving them both towards the shore, pulling Striker from the back. The creature nearest to the Gipsy stands and roars, ready to launch itself in the direction of the two Jaegers. 

It’ll land on Cherno, Mako works out. It’ll use its own weight combined with Striker’s against Cherno. Mako clenches her fist, feels Raleigh’s determination interlinked with hers as she focuses on running harder, gaining impulse, and -–jumps-- 

There’s a moment of weightlessness, then the impact jars her to the teeth. The kaiju wails, pinned in place by the Gipsy, it wails harder when the Gipsy’s blade lights up, the charge of the sword shocking it with its charge. The monster turns around, and they knee it in the head.

"Wait!" 

She’s not sure whether Raleigh’s really spoken outright, but there’s no time. Mako pulls out the blade, and swoops it down, cleanly slicing the monster’s leg off in the process. It hisses from below, and spits out acid at the Gipsy’s arm and the blade.

The sting of the burn sears through her consciousness and she almost falls back screaming. It’s more painful than anything she’s ever felt. It wrests her breath away.

“Mako, Mako! Stay with me!”

_Easy, easy, easy _, she hears him in her head, louder than his voice. The pain recedes. Not much, but it becomes tolerable. She breathes shallowly.__

___We lost our last weapon_. She thinks that the creature is half-dead anyway, but—_ _

__“Not dead enough.”_ _

__Raleigh reaches for the kaiju’s severed leg, and they bring it down against its head over the white-hot blast of pain in her burned arm. Again and again, they slam it down until she feels the give of bone below and the creature stops moving._ _

__“The second!” The other kaiju surfaces several miles away, quickly approaching Cherno and Striker, heading towards the shore._ _

__It feels like a reflexive motion, mainly Raleigh’s – a quick extension of the right arm. She shifts her left leg forward and the arm swings. Release._ _

__They hold their breath until the severed leg hits the beast over the head. What used to be half of Tengu falls, skidding to the coast, landing on its stomach before the Cherno Alpha. It opens its mouth to let out a defeaning cry--_ _

__Cherno brings down its spiked heel on the kaiju’s head._ _

__\--_ _

__“So you sliced its leg off and then you bludgeoned it to death with it?” The younger Hansen can’t keep the grudging admiration off his voice. “Now, that’s just fucking barbaric.”_ _

__Raleigh chuckles. “You didn’t ask us here to discuss the humane killing of kaiju, did you?”_ _

__Hansen lets his head fall back on the pillow and Mako catches his wince. She’s certain he’s the worst patient in the Shatterdome. Several broken ribs, some of them even perforating the lungs, and both Hansen and his father are lucky to be alive. The elder Hansen drifts in and out of consciousness, but is stable at least. Their Jaeger is not as lucky. Striker will be out of commission for a while._ _

__Only two for now, she thinks wearily. During the sleepless nights since the mission, it’s all she can think about. It’s been two days since the attack and the unease has returned with a vengeance._ _

__“No,” Hansen replies grudgingly. “I thought that it might be a good idea to say good job.” He juts his chin out with his usual swagger. “You know, before both of you get killed.”_ _

__“Nice.” Raleigh nods as if that remark is exactly what he was expecting._ _

__“We appreciate your concern, Mr. Hansen,” Mako says._ _

__Raleigh leans forward on the hospital bed railing and juts a finger at her. “She. She appreciates your concern. I still think you’re an asshole.”_ _

__“No,” Mako corrects him. “I think he’s an asshole too. I’m just being polite.”_ _

__“Well, aren’t you two a sweet couple.”_ _

__“You can buy me a beer,” Raleigh retorts. “I’ll even do you the favor of getting it for me.” He looks at Mako and points at Hansen. “Mako, you want a beer? Chuck’s buying.”_ _

__She’s about to speak when a choking feeling comes over her, the air being squeezed from her throat. The feeling comes more frequently now and she pushes it back with difficulty._ _

__Raleigh is still looking at her expectantly and she forces a smile. “That’s all right.” She pretends to look at something in her notepad. “I should go,” she lies over the chokehold on her throat, the clamminess of her hands. “Tendo’s expecting me.”_ _

__He looks at her skeptically. “This late?” He sighs. “He really is going to ban you from mission control.”_ _

__She shrugs, wincing at the phantom burn of her arm. “Get well, Mr. Hansen” she says curtly, trying not to make her desperation to leave obvious. “I’ll see you later, Raleigh.”_ _

__He nods and asks Hansen something, but she’s too busy running through her breathing exercises to make it out._ _

__With her arm still recovering, practice in the combat room is out of the question, so she ends up sitting in her room, drenched in a cold sweat with her stomach clenched. Trying to shut off her mind, she watches the clock tick down the minutes, keeps herself still through sheer force of will and ineffectual attempts to control her breathing. There’s still an image of the last kaiju in her head playing on loop. Dividing in two. Four. Six. Eight._ _

__Two. Four. Six. Eight._ _

__The feeling doesn’t leave her until the morning._ _

__\--_ _

__The Marshal sends for her several days later. Mako knocks twice and waits for him to call her in. She does a couple of breathing exercises. She still hasn’t gotten used to the build up of leftover adrenaline. It had taken weeks for the feeling to build up last time, and now, days…_ _

__“Miss Mori,” he greets her with a slight bow of his head, breaking through her thoughts. “How’s the arm?”_ _

__“All right,” she answers, stepping in. “Getting better.”_ _

__He gestures her in. “The nervous system takes some time to align. Same arm as last time?”_ _

__Mako nods. “I’ve utilized the chain sword in the last two drops.”_ _

__“Maybe you’re relying on it too much.”_ _

__“Maybe.” Mako bites her lip. “At the time, it seemed necessary for the kill.”_ _

__The Marshal makes a noncommittal sound. “Regarding the last two drops – you’ve submitted the last report? The Kaidanovskys have submitted Cherno’s report for Tengu and Charybdis, and since I won’t be seeing Striker’s for the present, I would like to see the Gipsy’s. Science division has requested it as soon as possible for a better sense of this new kaiju mutation.”_ _

__Mako frowns, making a mental note to make Raleigh do it this time._ _

__“This was your third drop with Becket.”_ _

__“Yes. We’re … getting used to each other.”_ _

__“You’re doing well,” he says and she smiles lightly, but feels there’s something else. The Marshal goes to his desk and opens one of his drawers. He pulls out several sheets and turns them towards her, spreading them across his desk. Mako approaches tentatively, eyes drifting over the numbers and graphs._ _

__“Simulator evaluations. Mission evaluations. Physiological stress response readings?” Mako looks up. The drift might be a mind meld between two pilots, but control keeps their readings and stats separate for debriefing and analysis. Her stomach knots in dread._ _

__“The simulator evaluations are yours. The mission evaluations are Becket’s. There’s been some,” he pauses. “…Irregularities in your combat profiles.”_ _

__“Irregularities?”_ _

__The Marshal reaches for a set of sheets and hands them to her. She scans through them voraciously. Her eyes dart from the data to the identification numbers repeatedly. Her head snaps up, eyes wide, and she feels her pulse beating in her ears._ _

__“They’re switched,” she says. “Misattributed.”_ _

__The Marshal shakes his head. “I thought so, but the data has been double-checked.”_ _

__“The risk assessment percentages…”_ _

__“They’re the same as yours -- in simulation.”_ _

__“Permission to look at my mission evaluations?”_ _

__The Marshal nods and passes her a folder. It feels like looking at a different person. “This has to be normal load balancing,” she finds herself muttering in Japanese. Her eyes go back down to the graphs under her fingers and she stifles the impulse to crumple the paper. “Part of the drift, two pilots synching the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It’s normal,” she hears herself insist in English. “In the literature, the drift causes the pilots to… trade. To approximate one another.”_ _

__“You’re referring to transfer function.” She nods and he continues. “Ghost-drifting. But that happens after long term exposure to the drift and it’s additive. Pilots _pick up_ aspects of their copilot. It’s not an outright exchange. Load balancing usually doesn’t entail your copilot’s combat profile supplanting your own and vice versa.”_ _

__“Then is it a hardware problem? Maybe a problem with the interface--”_ _

__“I took the assessments to med bay. They haven’t seen anything like it before either. Dr. Wu suggested a neuropsychiatric approach.”_ _

__She scrunches her face skeptically. “A disease of the nervous system? But everything is fine--”_ _

__“Dr. Wu doesn’t rule out the possibility of pathology.” The Marshal sounds weary. “There is no record of brain imaging for Becket after his dismissal at Anchorage. We needed him here and I never asked.”_ _

__It’s her turn to shake her head furiously. “Raleigh is fine,” she says firmly. “He is fully functional both in combat and outside of it. I trust--”_ _

__“And you?”_ _

__The question surprises her. “I have been examined, sir.”_ _

__“Not since the drift has been initiated. What one pilot experiences in the drift can pass to the other. ”_ _

__She takes a moment to process the information. “But even if there is an exchange, then there’s still load balancing. We continue to be drift compatible. The neural handshake holds.”_ _

__“For the moment. But nonetheless, it is highly unusual. And could have ramifications.”_ _

__“You can’t ground us!” It comes out harsher than she expected and she looks down. “Cherno is the only fully functional Jaeger beside us.”_ _

__“I know that.” He stands and comes over to her, placing a gentle hand on her back. “There might be no reason for concern. I’ve sent for Dr. Simran Malik, she’s a specialist, formerly based in Lima’s Shatterdome. We’ll arrange some preliminary evaluations, so she can orient herself and begin to rule pathology out.” The death grip on Mako’s throat is back._ _

__“I refuse to take unnecessary risks, Mako.” His eyes scrutinize her. “Has Becket been acting differently since the drops?”_ _

__“No, sir.” She forces herself to look at him steadily._ _

__“And you?”_ _

__Every instinct screams to tell him. She wants him to know. He has to know that she’s running ragged, that she’s unsettled under her own skin. And maybe if she tells him, the tightness of her chest will ease up a bit. Maybe he can make it all go away, just like he did when she was a child. Maybe she’d be able to sleep._ _

__But there’s only a lump in her throat. “No more than I expected.”_ _

__He nods, but stays quiet, as if expecting her to add more. She remains silent._ _

__“Report to medical bay at oh-eight-hundred hours,” he finally says._ _

__“Yes, sir.” She thinks he’ll let her go, but he simply looks at her until she feels her resolve cracking. It’s his way, ever since she’s been a girl. He could always wait her out. Except she’s not a girl anymore. It’s her call. “Permission to be dismissed, sir.”_ _

__There’s something sad in his eyes, mingled with the concern, and she feels the lump in her throat return._ _

__“Granted.”_ _


	4. Chapter 4

She bangs on his door until the next room’s occupants start yelling. Raleigh opens, mussy-haired, bleary-eyed and shirtless.

“Jesus, Mako,” he says, his voice husky with sleep, and lifts a hand to block off the bright lights in the corridor. “What time is it? You ok?”

“Four-thirty.” She walks in without preamble, still clutching her clipboard and papers tightly as she shuts the door quickly. Her hands haven’t stopped shaking since two, but it’s less noticeable the harder she clutches. 

He sits at the bed and looks at her quizzically. “Mako?”

The words come out in a rush and she narrowly keeps herself from pacing. “I was thinking that given our performance in the last two drops, we have been depending too much on the chain sword. While it has been effective, it requires close combat engagement, which leads to higher probability for injury. While the plasma cannon’s capacitor bank makes it impossible to add another weapon, I was thinking of modifying the magnetic bottle, I think we have some funding now—I talked to Mr. Choi about--“

“Wait, wait, wait.” Raleigh croaks, and raises a hand slowly. “It’s way too early for Japanese.”

Mako blinks. She hadn’t realized she’d lapsed into Japanese. “I thought you spoke ... ”

Raleigh rubs his face, his voice coming out a bit muffled. “It’s been a while. I don’t. I mean, I do, some. Not speak really. I understand. I mean, I understand _you_ \--you’re the left brain.” He winces when he realizes he’s making no sense, and waves a hand. “I’ll tell you later.”

She continues in English. “The Gipsy’s magnetic bottle is dated and we could use—“

He leans forward, squinting incredulously. “You’re thinking about repairs at four-thirty in the morning?”

“Not repairs.” Mako pushes her clipboard under his nose. “Modifications. These are some preliminary schematics with calc—“

“No…just no.” He waves it away. “It’s four-thirty in the morning, I am not reading that. No.” He stands up and pushes her gently towards the door. “Go back to bed, Mako.” 

“I can’t!” 

His head snaps up and she begins pacing.

“I haven’t slept a full night since we got back, I can’t concentrate, and meditation doesn’t work. I’ve been going to the combat room every night.”

“And?”

She shakes her head. “It’s worse.”

“Have you talked to medical about it? Who’s in charge of Psych—Acheson?”

“Not since the first drift.” She clenches and unclenches her fist beside her. “They wouldn’t let me in a conn-pod if they knew. But you’ve been inside my head.” Mako stops suddenly and faces him. “You would know. You would know if there’s something… wrong.” She swallows convulsively. “Is there something wrong?”

“No--not that I saw. But this is too long for combat stress. I've never--”

“I had it last time,” she interrupts. “Before the last drop.” She closes her eyes, places an open palm on her chest. “It feels like pressure. I can’t breathe. I can’t stay still. I’m thinking until nothing makes sense, and I can’t stop.” 

“Mako,” he says gently. “You shouldn't be spending so much time alone. The crews--“

She shakes her head. “It doesn't help. None of it helps.”

“Then maybe you need to get out of the Shatterdome for a day.”

She shakes her head again.

“You have to work with me here,” he says a note of frustration blossoming in his voice.

It dawns on her then what she was looking for. “I shouldn't have come,” she finds herself saying. Some part of her was hoping desperately he’d understand. A terrible feeling opens up inside her. Cold, white space. She shuts her eyes at the brief flash of vertigo. “You don’t –you don’t—you don’t understand—anything.“ Something akin to panic bubbles up all the way from the pit of her stomach and she steps back.

“No, no.” He stands and reaches for her. “Mako—“

“I need to go now,” she gathers herself enough to say, twisting from his grip. “I need—“

The rest of it is muffled against Raleigh’s mouth as her back hits the wall and she feels the clipboard and her papers fall. His lips are slanted over hers and, all of a sudden, he’s all she can feel – the press of his lips against hers, the weight of his hands on her shoulders. She reaches up, wrapping a hand around his forearm, closes her other fist around the dog tag chain. 

Mako wants to concentrate on this – the warmth of his mouth and corded muscles under her hands, the cool metal of the chain against her palm. It’s the same hyperawareness as before, but focused on him now, on every small detail of this. His lower lip is between hers and she bites down lightly, then pushes her tongue into his mouth, keeping the vertigo at bay through pure want. 

It’s not like the drift. The drift is a comfortable silence, expansive and bright. Uncentered. His lips part and his hand comes to rest on her nape. Wanting feels different. Calloused hands rough against her skin. Raleigh smells of soap, sweat, a faint trace of metal underneath it all, and Mako shudders. Wanting feels like a controlled constriction, a pleasant heaviness in the pit of her stomach that anchors her to her own skin. And it’s _hers_. The dog tags clink softly as she tightens her grip on the chain.

The hand at her nape falls to her upper back as they trade open-mouthed kisses, light against her shoulder blades, then her lower back. His fingers brush against where her tank top is tucked in the waistband of her pants, linger there, easy, a stable point of reference, while he kisses her. 

She wants to siphon off that groundedness into her or shatter them both. Mako slides her hand from his forearm to his head, fingers tangling through his hair, and shifts her leg between his and feels his intake of breath. His hand clenches briefly around her waist, then lets go. When she releases the chain, it’s to pass her fingertips over the scars at his side, hands gliding over his sweat-damped skin. She mouths against his jawline, catching his earlobe between her teeth, tasting the bite of salt at the tip of her tongue. Both his hands are at her lower back now, and there is nothing easy about the press of him against her belly, the rise and fall of his chest against hers. 

She feels the itch of sweat at her temple; her cheek is moist where it presses against his, a siren call of bare contact. “You can touch me,” she murmurs, wrapping her other leg around his and pushing her hips against him. 

He makes a sound between a gasp and a grunt that sends a shiver through her, hips pushing reflexively back against hers. Mako closes her eyes, letting the feeling resound through her, body falling into his rhythm. Her arms are at his shoulders and she pulls him down for another kiss. Sloppy and hard this time. He breaks it to fumble awkwardly with her top, gets one hand underneath it, while his lips find the pulse point at her neck. She jerks with a cracked cry, edging towards frustration. 

She grinds hard against him, but the friction is not enough. His lips and hands leave more heat wherever they touch her naked skin, but it’s only a build-up of kinetic energy that makes her feel as if she’s careening down an endless precipice with no breaks.

She puts enough space between them to fumble with her belt, pushing the pants down roughly, and yanks his mouth over hers like it’s air and she’s drowning. She feels selfish and frenzied as she takes his hand and presses it against her sodden underwear. A groan escapes him and her heart jack hammers, this, this, this.

His hand cups her and her hips jerk in response. It’s too little, and he has to know, must know, because between messy kisses, he pulls at the underwear until it slides to her ankles. And still his touch is much too tentative, too exploratory. She squirms, unable to stay in one place despite the hand now grasping her hip. None of it works, and the frustration builds into a whine at the back of her throat. He pulls away and for a second she’s horrified he might stop, but then she’s weightless, lifted with an arm curled around her waist. A mass of photographs and paperbacks scatters all over the floor when he sweeps his other arm over the desk, leaving her sitting on its cool surface. He pulls her hips forward to the edge and slides down between her legs.

Her back arches the moment she feels his tongue press against her, hips grinding against him. And it’s perfect. She can’t help it, can’t stop clutching at his head, while she rocks her hips, thighs clenching around him, one hand digging at his scalp, the other pressed against her mouth to smother her cries. It’s not long, and the tension unravels with an electric current that starts at the base of her spine and flares to her toes and fingertips. It leaves her limp and lightheaded while she waits for her breathing to regulate.

Raleigh’s hands slide up her outer thigh as he straightens up and looks at her, blue eyes warm, but murky. A sudden queasiness hits her and she closes her eyes.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she replies. The smell of burnt toast hits her nose. “Is something burning?” she hears herself mumble. 

“Nothing’s burning,” she hears Raleigh say from far away, just as her arms and legs begin to grow numb. Her head feels like it’s being pulled back through a suction pump. 

She opens her eyes slowly. A flash of white. Moving quickly. Being moved. She gasps for air. There’s tumult around her, but she can’t get her bearings. Where…?

A blink and she’s lying still on a hospital bed. A nurse is holding a hand in front of her. “How many fingers am I holding up, Miss Mori?”

Mako finds herself nodding above the throbbing of her head.

“You’re in medical bay, Miss Mori,” the nurse says. “You’ve had a seizure.”

Mako shuts her eyes tight. Her whole head feels as if it’s been shaken viciously and nothing makes sense. She brings up a hand to her temple and winces as every muscle protests the movement. There’s a needle in her arm.

“Careful, that’s the IV.”

Her hand drops away. She hadn’t realized she’d brought it near the needle. “Where…?”

“Medical bay,” the nurse responds slowly.

“Mako, how are you feeling?” The Marshal steps into her line of vision, approaching her from the side.

“Sensei…” It comes out as a cracked whisper. She looks for words, but feels unmoored. Her throat feels dry. She remembers her room. Equations. Bits of machinery.

The Marshal pats her hand, features drawn. “It’s all right.”

“Decreased verbal and interactive skills are common in the postictal state,” an authoritative voice intrudes. It belongs to a tall woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. “Postictal is a fancy term for ‘after a seizure’,” she says soothingly.

The Marshal turns to her and extends a hand. “Dr. Malik. You made it.”

She smiled and shakes it. “Still with the formalities, Stacker.” She approaches Mako. “More often than not, these are temporary. You’ll be back to yourself within a day or two, Miss Mori.” She turns to the Marshal. “Usually it’s hours, but this varies with the severity of the episode.” She looks at Mako again. “You may also lose several hours prior to the event. That is all normal as well.”

Mako struggles to follow, connections narrowly eluding her, words just a level away from sounds.

“She had two, correct? The first outside medical bay.”

Mako tries to move a leg experimentally and groans softly at the soreness. Exhaustion blankets over her. 

“That’s what was reported,” the Marshal is saying in a tight voice. “She was brought here already unconscious and went into another episode immediately after. Nurse Xiao was there.” He gestures to the nurse.

The nurse nods. “We had to administer several milligrams of lorazepam to sedate her.”

Every part of Mako feels heavy. The lights are too bright. She sighs, trying to focus again on the conversation around her, trying to avoid closing her eyes.

“And this is her first?”

The Marshal nods. 

“I haven’t had time to look at her medical history yet, but I’d like to talk to whoever brought her in, then we’ll send her for another CT scan and an EEG.”

Mako tries to remember. She’s back sitting in her room, writing the same equation over and over with shaking hands, while terror crawls through her. Something twists in her, even under the cloud of weariness. 

“I’ll send him your way. Dr. Wu is seeing him right now.” He hesitates. “He’s running through standard protocol.”

Malik’s eyes widen. “You think this has to do with the neural bridge.”

The Marshal nods again. 

“I see,” Malik says cryptically. 

Mako’s eyes close out of their own accord and she falls into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit sexual content.


	5. Chapter 5

Mako passes from sleep to wakefulness several times, vaguely registering the flurry of tests and her own still-sore muscles. In the end, she’s grateful when the nurses leave her for more than half an hour without wheeling her somewhere, sticking her with electrodes, passing her through a machine, or shining lights in her eyes. She wakes up hours later and recognizes Tendo Choi at her bedside. Tendo, she thinks. She smiles and wonders when the switch in her head happened, when he went from Choi to Tendo.

“I knew you were working too hard, kid,” he says. “How are you holding up?”

She feels as if she spent the whole day at the mats without any cool down at the end. It’s surprisingly hard to put into words, so she just says, “Fine.” At least her head has stopped feeling like someone’s grabbed it with two hands and started shaking it.

“I have some good news: I took the liberty of running your proposal through Budget Div.”

Her head is too foggy to figure out what he’s referring to. “Oh?”

Tendo gives an cocky roll of his shoulders. “Of course they approved it. Told you they would. For the first time we’re _under_ budget.” He leans against the railing of her hospital bed and grins at her. “But I also looked at the specs, and it doesn't look like an easy fix.”

She still doesn't know what he’s talking about. “When I get better…,” she says through dry lips. Her voice comes out a bit slurred.

“Yeah, kid,” he says quietly. “You just rest up. You’ll be back up and hassling me in no time.”

She nods.

“Listen, I gotta get back…” He pats her shoulder. “Take it easy.”

“Thanks,” she replies.

He walks out and silence falls, leaving her with her own thoughts. She blinks against the fogginess, wonders how long she’s slept since she was brought in. She thinks back to her last memory. Engine parts. Breakout board. Numbers. An implacable wave of anxiety, and then nothing. One moment here, then skip, scratch, erase.

She looks down at her hands. All she’d ever wanted was to be a Ranger.

Something clenches inside her and her eyes sting. She bows her head and lets the tears fall, feeling her throat get scratchy, sobbing breaths erratic. 

\--

She wakes up to the sound of the door slamming.

Dr. Newton Geiszler is wincing sheepishly. “Sorry, “I can come back,” he says quickly. 

“No, it’s fine.” She pushes her nearly full food tray away from her. Her lack of appetite coupled with the soreness where she’d bit the inside of her cheek had done her no favors. “What can I do for you, Doctor?”

“Newt,” he corrects, as he always does. “You know, this wasn't such a good idea. I’m—I’m gonna go—“

She gestures to a seat beside the bed. “Please.”

Geiszler paces for a bit, full of tense energy, clearly waging an interior conflict of some sort, before bounding to the chair.

“How are you feeling?”

Mako sighs. “The point, Doctor.”

“Newt--I need to ask you about Tengu.”

She cocks her head. The doctor’s interest in kaiju has always been distasteful to her. She has enough memories of kaiju etched in her brain to even consider staining her skin with them too, but she tries thinking of the doctor’s obsessions as another weapon. “I thought Cherno Alpha’s report was submitted.”

“So I have part of the story. But what’s your story?” he asks. He runs a hand through his hair and his eyes grow distant. “According to the Cherno’s report, Cherno had just killed the flyer when Tengu replicated. Now, I think that the flyer’s killing was the impetus of the replication.”

Mako thinks back, she's still foggy, but it's not a big jump. “It sounds…possible...”

Geiszler’s face breaks into a smile. “Fascinating! That’s all I wanted to know. I have a lot of questions—it seems like the frequency of the attacks has let up some, so that’s one. Not that you can help much there.” He brings a hand to his nape. “I am sorry to bug you like this. I just thought that this could be helpful information about the kaiju, and it’s always better to hear things from the horse’s mouth, if you know what I mean. Cherno was there, right, but their reports are always so short. ‘Kaiju was sighted. Kaiju was two hundred feet tall. Kaiju resembled enormous turtle’,” he mimics the Kaidanovskys’ accent. “There’s no imagination. Like if it was a turtle, what kind of turtle? A spotted turtle? A painted turtle? Did you know that there’s three hundred types of turtles…“

She lets the doctor continue, his babbling oddly soothing. 

“…And reptilian intelligence is controversial.” He’s still carrying on when the door opens and Raleigh walks in. “So obviously kaiju intelligence is controversial…” Geiszler turns towards him and keeps going without missing a beat, “Hey! Perfect, now I can ask you too. We were just talking about kaiju communication and its relationship to…” Geiszler trails off at his scowl.

“Really?” Raleigh bites off.

“Well, I hope I was helpful, doctor,” Mako says, knowing the visit is over.

Geiszler turns back towards her. “Newt-- totally. One last thing, you wouldn't happen to know if Tengu Two, the Tengu by the shore, looked—“

Raleigh’s patience snaps. “Later, man.” 

“All right, all right.” Geiszler begins moving toward the door. “But this is really important information.”

“It can wait.” Raleigh opens the door, “’till tomorrow.”

Geiszler is mildly indignant even as he walks through it. Mako can still hear him -- “Are you sure—“ until Raleigh closes the door. 

Mako smiles in spite of herself, but the smile slides off her face the moment Raleigh meets her eyes. All her dread refracted and multiplied his face. Her breath catches, and she looks off to the side.

She hears his intake of breath as he’s about to speak and says, “Don’t-” Her voice comes out shakier than she wanted. She licks her lips and tries again. “Don’t ask me how I am.”

She sees him nod from her peripheral vision. He turns the chair to sit astride it, and she feels calm enough to look at him again. “Everyone keeps asking me.”

“They didn't tell me you were awake,” he says evenly, crossing his arms over the back of the chair.

“I haven’t been—not the whole time.”

“Did the doctor come? What did she say?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. I was…” She waves a hand. “Out of it. I was sent out for some tests then I fell asleep. I woke up and Tendo was here.” She smiles a little. “He said they got funding for something I had in mind. I was thinking of reworking the Gipsy’s magnetic bottle to…” She’s not quite sure what to make of the flurry of emotions that cross his face. “What is it? I’ve talked about it before, haven’t I?”

“Yeah,” he says tersely.

Cold spreads through her. “You brought me in.”

He nods and something in his face is a mask of tension, a mix of fear and something else. She’s too caught in her own alarm to give it much thought.

“We—we weren’t in the Gipsy. When I had the--”

“No!” The tension in his face breaks. “No, no.”

She releases a breath. “I would remember something like that.” The words ring hollow to her ears. “I would.”

The door opens and the Marshal walks in. Raleigh springs up from the chair. The Marshal’s face darkens. “I need to speak to Miss Mori alone.”

A muscle twitches in Raleigh’s face. “You said I’d know when she woke up.”

“What a pity our schedules do not revolve around yours, Becket. Now if you’ll excuse us.”

“I will not excuse you!” he retorts. “You've poked and prodded at both of us the whole day, we deserve to—“

“You don’t deserve a damn thing, Ranger, other than what I decide you _need_.”

Mako shakes her head. “This affects both of us.”

The Marshal slides his gaze onto Mako. “You lied to me,” he says quietly. “The preliminary evaluations show above average levels of epinephrine and cortisol. Levels high enough that it is unthinkable that you not have experienced symptoms.”

She looks down.

“Did you know that something was wrong, Mako?”

She bites her lip, wills herself to answer, but can’t push the words out. To her horror, her eyes moisten.

“I cannot have a Ranger who lies to me and puts themselves and all we've tried to do in danger. I will ask you again: Did you know that something was wrong?”

She closes her eyes, feeling the hot trickle down her cheeks and lets herself drop forward, pressing her face against the mattress.

“Look—“ Raleigh tries to intervene.

“And you, in all my years, I have never seen such disregard for a copilot.”

“I didn't know!” he protests. “I would have—“

“It is your job to know. And you failed. Now, I don't want you here, Becket, but I need Gipsy Danger. Once your psychological evaluations are in order, you’ll be tested for compatibility with other candidates. If this is not to your satisfaction, then you may leave, and we will muddle through.”

“You can’t do this, we—“

“You already lost one copilot, Becket. Is that not enough?”

Mako straightens with a gasp, just in time to see the color drain from Raleigh’s face.

“Complete your evaluations,” the Marshal orders. 

Raleigh leaves without another word, the door slamming behind him.

“You shouldn’t,” she whispers after a moment against her better judgment. “You shouldn't have said that.”

The Marshal is about to speak when the door opens again.

“Good evening, Miss Mori.” Dr. Malik strides in with a nurse in tow. “Marshal,” she nods her greeting, oblivious to the tension in the room. The nurse approaches Mako with her blood kit while Mako roughly wipes her eyes.

“Dr. Malik.”

“I thought I saw your Ranger leave like a bat out of hell. I do hope it’s to go back to the psych ward-- he left the evaluations early. There’s at least two more remaining.”

“He’s apprised of the situation.”

“Oh, good. Good.” She turns to Mako. “How are you doing, Miss Mori?”

“Fine,” she says as the nurse takes her vitals and begins to draw blood.

“So what we've found in your blood work is an excess – “

“I've told her,” the Marshal supplies.

“Way ahead of me then,” Malik smiles benevolently. “Then you know what we're looking at. Those hormones signal excess stimuli -- in short, stress. Abnormally heightened stress. How long has it been, Miss Mori?”

She swallows. “Since the first drop. About two months.” The nurse finishes and quietly exits the room.

Malik’s eyebrows raise. “Two months. Of what? Palpitations? Fatigue? Problems sleeping? Incredible that your body could function so long under those conditions—“

“It wasn't—it wasn't bad at first.” Mako avoids looking at the Marshal. “I thought it was operational stress, but it got worse. If it’s stress, it should just lower, right?”

“It should, that’s what we're working out. Now that we have most of the preliminary brain imaging done, we can look at them with relation to the combat profiles. We haven’t completely ruled out epilepsy, but so far most of the tests clear that diagnosis. We can’t take any chances so hold tight while we keep you for some more EEG testing.”

“How long?” Mako asks.

“A couple more days.” 

“I sent you the combat profiles,” the Marshal says. “Along with the simulation evaluations.”

Malik nods curtly. “Well, Miss Mori’s at any rate. I understand we have no baseline for Mr. Becket?”

“Not any workable baseline.”

“And why is that?”

“His previous profiles are from five years ago prior to his dismissal. Circumstances being the death in combat of his copilot.”

“Right.” Malik looks like she wants to say something more, but her eyes land on Mako who looks at her worriedly, and all she responds is, “Well, I can see the necessity to be circumspect.”

“I’ve seen the combat profiles and simulation evaluations,” Mako begins carefully. “It looks like certain characteristics between myself and my copilot have…shifted.”

“Almost like a mirror image of one another.” Malik is nodding. 

“I thought it might be the transfer—“

“Ghost-drifting? No, that would be highly unusual for the short amount of time you've seen combat. Not to mention that transfer function is usually not an impediment, certainly not in combat, nor outside of it.”

“But this exchange…it’s not an impediment,” Mako says. “The combat profiles align. We've had as many kills as each drop required.”

“And yet, you suffer from crippling anxiety post-drop. Even from the preliminary tests, we can see that you have difficulty processing stimuli when the neural bridge is not engaged.” The words were uninflected, but Mako feels them raw. “Obviously, this is not a sustainable state.” 

“Miss Mori’s been barred from Jaeger piloting until further notice,” the Marshal says.

“As well as she should, but the presence of the neural bridge complicates things. We know that there seems to be some sort of exchange between the pilots, but the precise connection between that and the high levels of stress are still unclear.”

“Perhaps experience plays into it. She’s only recently become a Ranger.”

“That may be so, but since we have the neural bridge to consider, it’s worth asking questions about both pilots.”

Mako feels she should protest. “There’s the alignment—“

“During combat, yes. And outside of it? What about your copilot?”

The Marshal looks at Mako. 

“I haven’t seen any changes in Raleigh’s behavior,” she admits. “Not like me. That’s why I thought it had to be combat stress…”

“What are you thinking, Doctor?” the Marshall asks.

She shakes her head. “It’s too soon to say without knowing the full picture. Her stress levels are still above normal, we’re managing them with sedatives. Once we know exactly why this is happening, we can get to a workable treatment.” Her professional demeanor softens a bit. “Hang tight, Miss Mori. It won’t be long.”

Her words aren't at all reassuring.


	6. Chapter 6

“Thought I should return the favor,” Chuck Hansen says. “Grace you with my presence and all that.” He attempts a lounging pose, the smoothness marred by his wince and hiss of pain.

Mako smiles at the attempt. It’s some semblance of normalcy. “How are you both?”

When the door opened, she’d expected Raleigh at first, but found herself relieved that it was the Hansens. Both grunted with every step, collective ribs clearly protesting the movement. It all makes her feel embarrassed, until she remembers the Marshal’s words _barred from piloting until further notice_. Next to that, six months being out of a Jaeger seems like nothing at all. Her nerves are settled for the first time in as long as she can remember. Mako feels almost like herself again, which makes reflecting on the Marshal’s punishment that much worse. 

“We brought a friend,” Herc Hansen says, shooting his son a disapproving glance.

Her lips curl into a smile and she slides off the bed and squats to pet Max who strolls in leashless. The bulldog wags his tail happily while he tries to lick her face.

“How long they keeping you here?” Herc asks.

Mako looks up. “Until tomorrow, I think.” 

“Good. That’s good.” There’s a studied calmness in his face that makes her think that he knows, that the Marshal has told him everything. The Marshal hasn't dropped by since Dr. Malik’s visit the day before. She figures it’s just as well -- she has nothing to say that isn't an abject apology he probably doesn't want to hear. 

Chuck is blissfully unaware. “And how long until you’re back in a conn-pod?”

“I’m not sure.” She shrugs, artificially nonchalant, as if that isn't the question that haunts her. “Soon, I hope.”

“You’re not cracking under the pressure, are you?” Chuck asks and Herc nudges him roughly. Chuck lets out a pained yelp before covering it up. “I’m being honest here,” he snaps. “Things are bad enough out there without Rangers dropping because they can’t handle the load.”

“Hey--” Herc makes to jab at him again, but Chuck moves away. 

“No, I appreciate your concern.” Mako half expects the questions from him. 

“It’s not con--

“Rest assured that the Marshal will be comprehensive in his examination. When I’m cleared...” She summons all the certainty she doesn’t feel and avoids looking at Herc Hansen directly. “I’ll be one hundred percent fit for combat.” 

\--

Mako’s allowed out of medical bay the next day just as she thought. She’s packed up with a bottle of pills, and a stern admonishment from the nurses to go to her room and rest. They tell her to come back the next day to meet with Dr. Malik and she nods, although all she wants to do is forget about the whole thing.

It’s when she opens the door to her room that she realizes forgetting won't be so easy. Scattered circuitry and tools clutter on her desk and around her chair; masses of blueprints, reference manuals, pencils, pens, and crumpled papers full of notes and hastily scratched equations lay shoved to the side.

Mako picks up one of the crumpled papers and spreads it open, then does the same with several others. Some of the annotations and calculations have to do with the Gipsy’s plasma cannon, but most of them make no sense. Some of them are the same equation scratched out and repeated again and again in increasingly uneven and unfamiliar scrawl. It sends a chill down her spine.

She’s fine now, she thinks. She won’t embarrass herself with another fit. Won’t lose time like that. But it’s not enough, and Mako finds herself knocking on Raleigh’s door. Twice, she thinks, and if he isn’t there, or doesn’t want to answer, I’ll go back.

No answer. 

Mako accepts it grimly, clamps down on her uneasiness, and returns to her room. There she rolls up her sleeves, reaches for the wastebasket and begins clearing some of the papers away. 

She’s just cleared the mass of papers from her bed when there’s a knock on her door and she goes to open, wastebasket in the crook of her arm.

Raleigh eyes widen when they catch sight of the wreckage of her room over her shoulder. He’s holding her notepad. 

Mako suppresses her embarrassment at the state of the room. The Marshal would be appalled. “I don’t know either. I remember working, but not...” She sweeps her arm around. “Like this.” She takes the notepad and lets him in. There’s no space on her desk, so she leaves it on top of the bed. “Thanks…I was looking for you earlier. Where did I leave it?”

“My room,” he says, and she pieces the memory by inference. She must have gone to ask about the modifications to the plasma cannon. “Why were you looking for me?”

Someone must have seen her. _I was scared I’d have another fit. I was scared I was still the person who messed up this room. _Neither come easily to her lips, and she’s grateful when he doesn't press.__

“They had me in med bay for two days straight,” Raleigh says by way of explanation. “Today they started me on trials in the combat room again. I got time for lunch, but I have more candidates to go through in an hour.”

She swallows. Temporary fixes. “Any luck?”

Raleigh scoffs. “No.” 

Mako feels as if she’s in the absurd position of apologizing on the Marshal’s behalf, but she can’t keep silent. They might not be in a Jaeger at the moment, but he was still her copilot. “What the Marshal said, it was…cruel.”

“He was right. I should have known.” It comes a little too fast, like this is something he’s been practicing. “I was too caught up in my own head.”

She supposes she was too. 

Raleigh’s staring at her. “What are you thinking?”

She shakes her head. “That I was too. I never saw it coming and it was _in_ me. What if—“

“You’ll drive yourself crazy if you go there,” he interrupts. “You can't change it. We don’t have the full story of what happened yet, so let’s just wait it out.” His tone softens. “Look, everyone is running scared now. It’s not – it’s not an easy thing to face, but maybe it’s just about time, you know? Adjusting to everything.”

Her mind fills the gaps. Everyone is running scared of a pilot that might have a mental breakdown in a conn-pod. It’s not an easy thing to face that you aren't in control of your own head. That your body is working against you. “And the Marshal?” she finally says.

“He’ll come around. He did last time.”

“That was different.” She fiddles with one of the crumpled papers. “He didn't blame me then.”

“You didn't know.”

“I knew something was wrong. I didn't know what, but I knew there was _something_. He asked me. And I said no.” Mako closes her eyes. “I lied. I just--”

“You didn’t want to fail.”

“Not like this.” She makes a fist, hard enough to feel the press of her nails against her palm. “That’s twice now that I can't control my head—“

“Look, the first time was my fault— _I_ took you out of alignment—“

“It doesn't matter.” She waves a hand. “The result is the same.”

“Are you feeling any better? What did the doc say?”

She points to the corner of her desk where she left her pills. “Stress levels dropping. Not normal yet, but dropping.” She sighs. “It’s not epilepsy or a tumor. She'll tell me later, once she goes through the tests more carefully. That’s about it.”

“That’s something.” His voice is heavy with relief. “Once the doc clears you, we talk to the Marshal. This could be just…some freak occurrence. We haven’t messed up out there. Not even close. He needs us.”

“He needs the Gipsy," Mako corrects. "He’s already begun looking for another copilot for you. And there’s still the issue with the combat profiles.”

“The ghost drifting.”

“Is it?” Her head snaps up. “The Marshal and Dr. Malik were both pretty sure it wasn't when they talked to me. Did Dr. Malik tell you anything?”

“Only that you’re the unpredictable one – on paper, at any rate.” There’s the beginning of a smirk on his face and she scowls.

“Not funny. Did you…ghost drift with your brother?”

Raleigh rubs his forehead. “I don't know. Maybe? They say it’s really rare and if we did, it wasn’t…” He gropes for words, “It wasn't a straightforward switch like that. We called it a drift hangover. But I didn’t all of a sudden start liking pickled herring or anything. Our combat profiles never flipped either.”

“Then what was it?”

He shrugs. “Like the drift, only…lighter. Like you knew what the other person was thinking, kind of.”

She processes the statement, lets the silence fall.

“It’s a little like after we come back. Right after.” He continues almost reluctantly. “Or I thought it was. I’m not sure. Could have be just…” He’s frowning now, all the levity gone from his face. “Guesswork.”

Mako shuts her eyes tightly. “It’s only confusing here. When we're out there, it is so _clear_. Everything.”

“Maybe it’s just about waiting it out. You said the stress levels are lowering." A note of confidence blossoms in his voice. "You could be back to normal any day now.”

“And the combat profiles?”

“It’s not a problem out there. We balance out. It’s just weird and, come on.” He grins then. “We pilot Jaegers through a mind meld. It’s all weird.”

Mako smiles a little, buoyed by his optimism. “You're not…” She touches a hand to her temple. “Scared to go back in there?”

His expression becomes closed. She thinks back to med bay, his eyes gone opaque, and instantly regrets the question. 

“Hey...if you feel you can do a drop, then we will,” he says, bouncing back quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with you in the drift. It’s strong. It's always been strong.” He makes as if to reach for her, but stops just before making contact. His hand falls to his side, but his expression is serene. “I trust you. Everything else will just fall into place.”

She nods, wanting desperately to believe him.

“I got to get back.” He turns to the door and opens it.

“Raleigh,” she calls. “If you test drift compatible with another recruit you'll tell me, right?”

The statement is a stupid plea for assurance to her own ears.

“It’s not going to happen.”

The niggling doubt makes her unable to stay silent. “You can't ignore it. If it happens.”

He turns back to her and attempts a smile that looks a little sad to her. “You can't force it either.”

With that he’s gone.

\--

Mako occupies herself with more work on the Gipsy. She manages to start on the modifications to the plasma cannon. Seems like the budget increase also allowed the Shatterdome to acquire more candidates -- she sees the helicopters about once every couple of days, bringing two or three of them with their duffel bags and eager looks plastered on their faces. She doesn't focus on them, just goes back to the Gipsy and imagines what it feels like to be locked in, the Jaeger’s motor systems widening her awareness, surfacing in the luminous silence of the drift. Remembers what it was like to stare down a kaiju, run it through with her sword.

But she can’t ignore the influx of candidates. They infuse the Shatterdome with new energy, there’s a heightened buzz now where before there had been a comfortable murmur. She sits by Raleigh during dinner, trying not to think of it much, but he’s not much help. Ever since he started testing drift compatibility with other candidates, she’s pretty sure he takes breakfast and lunch elsewhere. He shows up near zombie-like for dinner, looking as if he’s minutes away from passing out into his food. Sometimes she talks about her work on the Gipsy, but most of the time they let other people around them talk. It’s easier that way.

“You look tired,” Mako points out the obvious about a week later. “Trials aren’t supposed to take every waking hour.”

“Not trials,” he mutters over the bread. “He took took me off them to train.”

The Marshal. She raises her eyebrows. “He thinks you need training?”

Raleigh shakes his head. “Not me. I'm just helping out. Didn't you hear? They've reopened the Academy.” 

“I thought it was a rumor.” The Academy closed scarcely after Raleigh arrived at the Shatterdome, another bleak point in an already strained situation between the Jaeger Program and the Defense Corps. But that would explain it then.

Mako’s heard rumors, too, about a new Jaeger in the works, but she hasn't given them any credence either. It wouldn't be the first time she’s heard that rumor, or that they've amassed recruits with a limited number of Jaegers. It’s not an easy thing to assemble one from scratch. Just getting the Gipsy operational took over a year.

“It’s not. They’re tracking down old Jaeger pilots, but for now it’s only me, the Kaidanovkys, and the triplets—since the Kaidanovskys and the triplets are technically on duty, they slammed me with four groups until the Hansens can help out.”

“The Marshal is still traveling?” It’s a well known thing around the Shatterdome. Now that she knows that the Academy reopened it makes sense.

“I guess. I haven’t seen him around.” Raleigh punctuates the statement with a yawn. 

“I haven’t either.”

He stands up and picks up his tray. “See you tomorrow.”

Mako nods and watches him leave, feeling strangely out of time. 

\--

One night she goes to the combat room – not because she can’t sleep. Because she wants to keep herself sharp. Because if she does, everything will fall into place. But the room is not empty. There’s a couple of recruits practicing, two women a few years younger than her. Their moves are clumsy and workmanlike, Mako suspects they're going over what they just learned. They stop when they sense her watching them and turn around. One of them has a garish scar that runs from her forehead down to her jaw. She looks at Mako directly.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Mako says self-consciously.

“It’s okay,” the other says. She’s nondescript, almost painfully ordinary. “I've seen you before. You’re a tech, right? With the Gipsy Danger?”

Mako makes herself nod. She has had three routine check-ups. After the last, Dr. Malik lowered her sedative dose, but refused to broach the topic of clearing her for combat. Results still unclear.

“We arrived yesterday,” the candidate is saying.

“Kodiak Island?” The Academy. Probably recent graduates working through the next phase of training. 

They both nod. 

“Congratulations,” Mako squeezes out before they can ask her anything else. “I should…”  
She gestures to the door. “I should go. Good—good luck.”

Time, she tells herself as she swoops down the corridor to her room. Time. She lies on her bed and thinks of steel and sprockets, dreams of roller chains and the colors of the HUD melding together. Of her hands encased in metal, ruthless and unyielding. Time, and everything will all fall into place.

\--

Mako’s done with the plasma cannon a month later. The range is not what she’d imagined, but it’s more than it used to be. Testing is what remains, but she'd have no chance to do that while the Gipsy is grounded. 

She feels as if she’s counting down. The countdown hits zero two days after; there’s movement in the breach again.

She washes into LOCCENT with the flood of techs just in time to hear Tendo blare out, “One signature. Code name Hydra. Category three.” Instead of the Marshal, however, Herc Hansen is beside him.

“Cherno Alpha,” he says. “You’re up.” 

The Kaidanovskys nod and rush out. 

“What category?” Raleigh materializes at her elbow.

“Three. The Marshal is still out it seems.”

“Yeah, it’s all hush hush,” he mutters. “Herc knows, but he’s not talking.”

She turns towards him. “More funding stuff? Why the need for secrecy?”

Raleigh shrugs and Mako looks back to Tendo. “They’ll be okay, right? Cherno.”

“It’s a category three," he says reassuringly. "Cherno's faced worse.” 

“Okay, people, back to work. If you’re not working at LOCCENT give us some room!” Tendo yells and the crowd begins to disperse. His eyes fall on them. “You two can stay,” he says before turning back to the display.

\--

Mako’s just watched Cherno pummel Hydra to a pulp near the coast of Manila. LOCCENT erupts into applause and cheers, once Aleksis’ voice comes through the comm, “Kill confirmed.”

“Well done, Cherno,” Herc replies. “Wait for transport.”

Mako feels her muscles relax, almost sags with relief. She'd been scarcely able to breathe as she watched the clash through the monitors, wanting desperately to be out there where she could matter. But it’s s all right. She looks over at Raleigh who beams at her.

“I told you.”

“I’m just glad it’s dead.” And right then, it’s the truth. Another monster torn to pieces, so many lives saved. She reaches out and squeezes her copilot's hand.

“Mako.” He clears his throat. “I need to talk to you.”

Her eyebrows knot at the strain in his voice. “Now? Okay.”

“Alone.”

“Um, sure.” It's a strange request so suddenly, but she thinks the Gipsy’s repair area is good a place as any for privacy, especially when most of the crew is either gathering at Cherno’s repair area to receive the Jaeger.

Mako’s gesturing Raleigh to follow her when one of the nurses walks in. “Ms. Mori, Dr. Malik would like to see you.”

She trades a glance with Raleigh, heart suddenly in her throat.

“I should—“

He nods. “Later. Go.”

She gives him a shaky smile and follows the nurse out.


	7. Chapter 7

_This is it. This is when everything goes back to normal._

It takes every ounce of Mako’s willpower to follow the nurse at a regular pace as they make their way to med bay. She feels excitement bubble from within her, warmth filling her up, like receiving a gift -- that moment just before you open the present.

Dr. Malik is at her desk when Mako walks in. She has her glasses on and is perusing some document. She removes the glasses and gestures for Mako to sit down.

“I hope we haven't cut any celebrations short,” Malik begins. “But I thought you'd want to know as soon as possible.”

Mako sits, Malik’s words breaking through her cheer. “Know what?”

“The results. I think I have a rough idea of the cause of the neural overload. It took quite a bit of detective work.”

Mako leans forward anxiously. “Is it remediable?”

“We’ll get to that,” Malik says. “The key to understanding your symptoms was to analyze your data in connection with that of Mr. Becket.”

A pang of dread hits Mako. “Is he showing signs…?”

Malik shakes her head. “There’s no indication of excessive levels of stress in his neural activity. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story does begin with Mr. Becket, however.”

Mako frowns. 

“According to his file, Mr. Becket was linked to his brother during his passing, right? The termination of the neural handshake under those conditions is incredibly dangerous. Continuing to pilot after such an incident makes for serious neurological strain -- the end result being trauma on the brain. Now, this is all reasonable conjecture since Mr. Becket refused brain imaging and treatment after his debriefing, correct?”

“I suppose.” Mako thinks back to the Marshal. He’d suspected, hadn't he?

“So we have no way of knowing for sure.” Dr. Malik hits a button and an image of a brain comes up. “What we do see is excessive activity in certain nerve fibers.” Malik gestures to an area bathed in red light. 

“Wait—that’s Raleigh’s…”

Malik nods, she pauses, seemingly to organize her thoughts. “His MRI results, yes. We believe that his past experiences have lead to behavioral changes in his combat profile. You might think of it as compensation—whereas impulse control percentages were low in former profiles, they have increased dramatically. Enough to resemble yours.”

“Resemble? Not the same.”

“No, not the same,” Malik confirms. “I believe you made a note of this possibility in one of your preliminary reports, Ms. Mori--that Becket’s previous experiences might result in changes to his combat profile” She clicks the display off. “And we arrive at the central mystery: the alignment of the profiles and the theory of exchange.”

Mako struggles to piece it all together. His combat profile resembles her simulation evaluations, resembles, not mirrors. Suddenly it all clicks, and she meets the doctor’s eyes.

“There is no exchange,” she whispers. “No transfer function.” She’s still working out what that means when Malik speaks again.

“Not the way we usually think of it.” Malik sounds almost apologetic. “What we see here is a form of compensation – a reaction to stress. And this is where it gets tricky, because Mr. Becket obviously has extensive experience with the Pons system and years of drift adaptation. At this point, when the neural bridge is engaged, his neural system instinctively seeks balance. So when there’s a stressor, the signal is routed elsewhere. ” 

“To me.” That much is obvious, but Mako feels lost. She’s taking in Raleigh’s combat stress. But why?

Malik is nodding. “At its base, it’s a problem with load balancing. Your previous psych evaluations suggest that you have combat related stressors of your own, probably from previous trauma. That said, engagement with the neural bridge makes the signal cycle back. Between the left and right hemispheres, between two nervous systems, the elevated response is handled reasonably well. Without the neural bridge, however, we see a situation like the one we have: inability to manage sensorial stimuli and re-establish homeostasis or equilibrium. The connection of two neural pathways leads to stability, but disconnection doubles the stress response for one, making it overwhelming.”

Mako suspected that everything is fine as long as she’s plugged in, but the confirmation is not helping. She gives up on the reasons. Only one thing matters. 

“How do I manage this...excess? Sedatives?”

“There’s something you need to understand.” Malik’s tone is sharp. “With both your profiles, it’s a perfect storm. There are certain neurological changes that pose a significant risk.” She presses a button and another image of a brain comes up. “That’s your MRI. You already have a propensity for high cortisol production—stress—and unfortunately, your copilot only adds to it. This is serious, Ms. Mori.” She gestures to a part of the brain that looks oddly wormlike to Mako. “Excessive cortisol damages the hippocampus—memory and cognitive function can easily become compromised.”

“But with medication…?”

“We brought down your cortisol levels through a high dose of benzomexine and your body handled it like it was a low-dose valium. While your cortisol levels are lower now, they remain too high. Notice that I still haven’t discontinued the sedative you’re currently taking. If we go this route we risk habituation. There’s no reset button. Every time you engage in combat, your tolerance may increase until there is no dosage high enough to bring your cortisol levels down. At those levels, the risks from the sedative itself are considerable.”

Mako nods dully. Another thought occurs to her. “Then Raleigh – his copilot will always need to load balance the heightened stress levels…”

“As I said, it’s a perfect storm. Without your propensity for stress, it’s very possible that you could perform the load balancing without post-drop consequences,” Malik says and Mako’s cheeks burn. “Should Mr. Becket be drift-compatible with another candidate, the neural bridge can probably be engaged without these risks.” 

Mako looks down at her hands. Part of her wants to scream that it’s not fair. _It’s not my fault._

Malik digs the knife deeper. “This might sound harsh, but neither you nor Mr. Becket should have seen combat. The rigors of the neural bridge are enough for stable pilots. Two unstable pilots – it’s like adding fuel to the fire. I understand Marshal Pentecost’s argument -- given the circumstances, choices are limited, but…” She shakes her head. 

Mako hears the words, but can't bring herself to believe them. It can't…This isn't how she imagined the meeting going. She feels like she’s stumbling into nothing, grasping at a rock wall that’s crumbling under her hands. Like she’s freefalling.

“Provided you don’t engage the neural bridge, the prognosis is very positive,” Malik finishes, tone upbeat, like it’s a solution. “I will probably be able to discontinue the sedative in a several weeks.” 

“And if I do go inside a Jaeger?” Mako dares to hope. “How much stress can I take before it starts affecting me?” 

“It’s difficult to make an estimate of that sort of thing. Too many variables are in play. But you should keep something in mind.” Malik leans forward. “It’s not the going inside the Jaeger that is the problem, Ms. Mori. It is getting out.”

\--

Mako stumbles out of med bay, punch drunk with the news. Gets halfway to the Gipsy’s repair area by muscle memory, before something else uncurls, silvery and hard in the pit of her stomach. Mako whirls around and dashes back to LOCCENT. She almost breaks into a run, feels the air on her face, the furious beat of her heart.

She almost crashes into Tendo, who is carrying a couple of coffee mugs. “Whoa, there.”

But Tendo’s not the one she’s looking for. Herc Hansen is in front of the display, going over the data when she calls his name, almost breathless.

“Where’s the Marshal?”

He looks surprised. “He just got in fifteen minutes ago. I’m assuming in the hangar—“

Mako doesn't stay to answer any questions. The hangar is packed with techs and candidates looking to greet Cherno, and she weaves her way through the crowd, eyes out for the Marshal’s tall figure and nothing else. Her teeth grind together and she feels her shoulders square. She slows down once she catches sight of him, but the burn at her solar plexus doesn't let up.

He’s looking at something a tech is showing him, and she gathers enough presence of mind to snap, “Excuse us.”

The tech takes one look at her face and nods.

The Marshal looks at her curiously, but manages no more than, “Mako—“ 

“You knew,” she says in Japanese. The honorific form drips out of her, excessive and accusing, weighed with contempt. “How long? How--”

He understands the slight. “That’s enough.” She thinks she hates him then, feels choked up with it. She’s nineteen again, holding the piloting program’s rejection letter, signed Stacker Pentecost. Then, like now, it’s the same, wasted nights in the combat room or simulator, anxious nights counting down the minutes, the seconds until she could prove herself, all for nothing.

Her vision’s gone watery, but she doesn't care. “You knew that I would never pilot again. You knew.” Mako wipes her eyes roughly. There really isn’t anything else to say, and she turns, disappearing back into the crowd.

\--

Knocking at her door wakes her, and it takes her a couple of seconds to reorient herself. Her eyes feel gummy and there’s a headache threatening to emerge. She’s wrung out completely. The knocking doesn't let up, even while she washes her face and downs her sedative, cringing as it drags down her throat. She ambles to the peephole.

Raleigh’s there, holding something she can’t make out. He keeps knocking until she opens.

“You skipped dinner,” he says after she opens the door a crack. He pushes a plastic container towards her. “Meatloaf night.”

“I'm not feeling well.” Her voice sounds stuffy in her ears. She would like to leave it at that, but the smell of the food makes her stomach grumble loudly. She grabs the proffered container and grudgingly steps aside to let Raleigh in. 

Mako slides the food on her desk and begins looking through her drawers for a pair of chopsticks.

“Here.” Raleigh hands her a napkin with a plastic fork.

“Thank you.” She sits at her desk, takes one bite, and realizes she is famished. One bite turns into two, turns into three and she forces herself to slow down.

“Dr. Malik called me in right after you left.”

Mako pauses eating, puts the fork down. He’d wanted to talk to her just before she'd been called in, hadn't he? He’d probably known already, just as the Marshal did. How or why didn’t really matter. She’s the rookie here. “I don’t really want to talk about this.”

“I understand.” She hates how even-keeled he is about the whole thing. But he can be, she thinks pettily, nothing changes for him except for getting a new copilot. “I’m sorry.”

She nods and goes back to eating. 

“Will you be okay?”

Mako keeps chewing. She shakes her head. 

He opens his mouth and closes it several times before he speaks again. “And will you feel like talking about it later?”

She swallows, shakes her head again. He’s looking at her expectantly. “You met with the doctor. You know. There’s nothing to talk about. That’s it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“You shouldn't apologize. It doesn't change anything.” He’s staring at her in a way that makes her uncomfortable, like he wants something from her. “I think you should have the Marshal restart the trials, find a new neural match.” It’s like biting one’s nails to the quick until they bleed. “The Gipsy’s ready to go.”

“I don’t want to go out there without you.”

Mako shrugs. She can’t help herself. “You're fine. All you need is a stable copilot.”

“Mako—“

“Thanks for the food,” she says, standing up. He still looks at her like he wants some other response, but she doesn't know what. And right now, she doesn't much care. He walks out with disappointment etched into the set of his shoulders and all she can think about is that she’s right: apologies don’t change anything.

She closes the door and goes back to her desk.


	8. Chapter 8

The Marshal gives her a couple of days to cool off before he calls her to his quarters. Last time he’d called her in, she could barely swallow down her embarrassment, now she finds it difficult to care. Her anger has been replaced with something implacable, numb like scar tissue.

She knocks twice, waits for him to invite her in. 

He hands her a rolled up poster-sized sheet and Mako wonders if it’s another test. She can't muster any enthusiasm. It all seems pointless now.

“Take a look.” He’s calm as always, doesn't acknowledge her previous outburst, but then the Marshal has always been the adult in the room. 

Mako rolls the sheet open carefully, eyes roving over the contents. Jaeger blueprints. Interest piqued in spite of herself, she scans through the designs. “Mark I,” she reads. “It’s a lighter build than any—“ she breaks off with a gasp in spite of herself and looks up. “These—these are the blueprints for Tacit Ronin.”

The Marshal is smiling one of his rare smiles. “What’s left of her is here now.” 

She cocks her head. “I don’t understand.” Mako thinks back to the profiles she’d received about the Jaegers in Oblivion Bay years ago. “I thought it was too far gone.”

“With our previous budget limits, yes. But I've been able to impress upon our benefactors the need to get another Jaeger in working order. They've been satisfied with our work thus far and would like to see it continue. Even possibility of eventually reopening another Shatterdome is under discussion,” he says as if that is not momentous in and out of itself. “But for now, the Tacit Ronin is our priority. Are you up to it?”

She’s reeling at the news. Reopening another Shatterdome? Restoring a new Jaeger? “What?”

“If you accept the challenge, I would like you to oversee its restoration just like you did with the Gipsy.”

Her eyes narrow a bit and she begins rolling up the sheet carefully. A consolation prize. Like the Gipsy was. She feels like she’s moving in circles. History repeating itself. “So I will get Tacit Ronin up and running for another Jaeger pilot. Then I’ll stand in LOCCENT with the other techs and watch it go.”

“Mako, you were never intended to see combat.” She appreciates the bluntness, even if what he’s saying still stings.

“But I did.” Her chin juts out. “And I was meant to be there.”

The Marshal is grim and tries a different tack. “Do you think Dr. Malik is lying?”

“She says there’s no problem during combat.”

“And after?”

“I’ll take medication.” 

The Marshal shakes his head. “You know it’s not as easy as that.”

“I rather die a million times out there than in here,” she allows herself the hyperbole. 

He brushes off the remark. “I can't have you risking your copilot and a Jaeger, not to mention your own life. It’s foolish.”

She swallows, feeling pathetic, but she needs to try. “I will work on the Tacit Ronin. Just let me fight.” 

“There are many ways to fight. You've had your vengeance, Mako. It was a good run.”

“It’s not vengeance.” She can’t believe she has to explain this to him, of all people. She thinks of all she could say about him exorcising his own demons through crushing her dreams, but she can't. The Marshal is still Sensei, and she owes him more than her life can repay. All she says is, “I need to be out there.”

“Will you work on the Tacit Ronin or not?” And just like that, the matter’s closed.

“What about the Gipsy?”

“Ibañez has been working under you since you started. He can take over.”

“If I decline?”

“You’ll be a floater.” Supervise work on Jaegers and report to LOCCENT. The position requires high level knowledge of all the Jaegers, but attachment to none. He’s taking her off the Gipsy’s crew, she realizes. Tearing off the band-aid.

The Marshal hasn't left her many choices. Just one, precisely. “I’ll get Tacit Ronin back online.”

He looks at her and there’s an appeal in his eyes. “I’m not doing this to make you miserable, Mako.” Déjà vu to another time, another place.

Mako doesn't feel quite so numb anymore. She forces her lips into a smile that can cut glass. “No, sir. You’re just saving my life.” 

\--

Mako throws herself into the repairs for the Tacit. She’s never worked on a Mark I before and the learning curve is steeper than she anticipated. To add to that, the kaiju that demolished it tore it to pieces. Just doing the inventory of the parts she needs promises to take weeks. 

It’ll be worth it when she’s done. The blueprints show a sleek Jaeger unlike the ones she’s used to, its speed rivaling Striker’s. She wishes she could remember the Tacit in its heyday. According to PPDC documents, it was first launched two years after the first kaiju attack and eventually stationed alongside Coyote Tango in Tokyo. She remembers Coyote Tango clearly, of course, but everything else is muddled between psychiatric evaluations, trips across different time zones, mountains of assignments to catch up with her schooling, and her taciturn new guardian. He’d been Sensei then, exacting, but not as rigid. That had come later. After Tamsin. After Mako's enrollment at the Academy.

The next kaiju attack happens while she’s getting started on what remains of the Tacit’s stabilizers. She rushes into LOCCENT, just in time to see the Marshal call in Crimson Typhoon to tackle another category three. The triplets file out and Mako can’t help but be envious of Cheung’s recovery. 

“Heard you've been working on a new Jaeger,” Chuck murmurs beside her.

She nods. “Tacit Ronin.”

“Always been a shit name.”

Mako gives him a sideways glance. “She’ll be faster than Striker when I’m done with her.”

He sneers a little. “I’d like to see that.”

“I hope you’re getting some time to work on Striker,” she needles. “Can’t leave a Jaeger unattended for long. How are the ribs?”

“Fine, thank you. How’s the brain.”

She makes a face. “Same.”

“Careful you don’t wake up one day and decide to blow us all away.”

“Too easy. I want something bigger to blow up.” Mako snickers, and Chuck snorts. She hasn't talked to any pilot in weeks. She’s a bit surprised the interaction feels this comfortable.

“Did I miss anything?” She turns her head and nods a greeting at Raleigh, even as she inwardly recoils, all ease dissipating.

“Just having a moment with your girlfriend.” 

Mako rolls her eyes. “Mr. Hansen’s sad that Striker’s been rusting while he’s resting.”

Chuck actually has the gall to look outraged.

\--

“Heard you got put on another project,” Raleigh says after the fight is over and people have started filing out of mission control. The Crimson did well, not as well as Cherno, but Mako supposes that part of it has to do with how much time it’s spent off the field. She joins the throng with Raleigh at her heels.

“The Marshal got funding to refit the Tacit Ronin.”

Raleigh’s eyebrows raise. “ _The_ Tacit Ronin? Japan’s Tacit Ronin?”

“That’s what the Marshal has me working on.” And she’s headed there right now. Mako’s not sure why Raleigh is following her, but she’s beginning to feel trapped.

“I heard it was brought down there.”

She nods. “Smashed. But it took three kaiju down in the years before that.” 

“They’re keeping you busy, huh. I never see you at mess.”

“Tacit’s in worse shape than the Gipsy was.” It’s partly true. “Refitting her will take some time, and I don’t know if the funding will dry up at some point so…”

“I figured.”

She keys in the code to the repair area and the door opens.

“There’s this kid,” he blurts out. “His EEG patterns are within the parameters...” He breaks off with a shrug. She can finish what he left unsaid…within the parameters needed for the drift. A new copilot.

“Good,” she says although it’s the opposite of what she feels. Why is he telling her? She strides in quickly, clamping down on her irritation. All he’s doing is pouring salt on a wound.

“They've put me in the simulator with the kid.” He switches topics again. “Must feel good though. Getting started on another Jaeger.”

“It does.” She’s looking for an exit to the conversation. It’s hard when it requires her to shoo him off, no way to go without adding to the awkwardness she already feels.

“Do you do anything other than work?” 

He sounds vaguely accusing and her head snaps towards him. She halts in her tracks. “What?”

“You heard me. Do you do anything other than work?” He’s dialed it back and sounds merely curious now, but she can tell it’s all façade.

She forces a laugh. “Of course not. Do you?” She resumes walking, faster this time. “Didn't you miss breakfast and lunch when they had you helping with training?” 

“The hours didn't line up. They started on the recruits at four and gave them lunch at ten—that's--that’s not the point,” he breaks off.

The Tacit’s repair area is in the back behind the rest of the active Jaegers, blocked off by another door. She doesn’t really care what the point is; she just wants him to leave her alone.

“Have dinner with me.” She doesn’t want to recognize the tone. It’s too complicated. 

“Later,” she waves him off. “Once I get the primary drives up, I’ll start showing up at mess.”

“No, I mean dinner, as in a date.”

Mako laughs again-- half because she doesn't know how else to respond, half because the idea is absurd. She opts for skepticism. “Are you serious?”

He seems a little ruffled by her reaction, but says, “Yeah.”

“Because you want to or because of the drift?” She keys in the code. Some form of atonement? A way to pretend they had some connection when it was already gone? She thinks back to odd impulses she had post-drift, but if things were muddled then, she has no words for how they are now. “It’s hard to know, isn't it? That’s why the program likes families so much,” she mutters. 

Raleigh sighs and it sounds like exasperation. “We haven’t been in the drift in over three months, Mako. And before that we had a total of what? Two, three drops? You—“

“Three,” she interrupts. “Three drops.”

Irritation passes through his features, but he continues regardless. “You know the drift doesn’t work like that. If you're not interested, just say so.” 

She looks at him, shocked that he would see it so simply. Her mouth forms a thin line. She wishes she could stop thinking of gears, wishes she could no longer feel a phantom thrum of energy at her fingertips when she looks at him. Everything she wants but can't have is written all over him. Just looking at him hurts.

“Sure, you can tell me all about your kaiju kills. I'd smile and be happy for you. Maybe you can tell me more about your new copilot.” She slams the enter button.

“You asked me to tell you if they found some other drift-compatible candidate!”

 _I lied_ , she can’t say, so she says nothing at all. 

“You blame me.”

She does have a response for that. The doors open and she strides in. “Don’t be silly.” She turns her head to look at him. “I _can’t_ blame you.” His eyes flicker to the Tacit Ronin’s broken body behind her.

“You were going to give up the Gipsy once. Because Pentecost asked you to.”

Mako doesn’t understand what he means by it. “I believed the Marshal.” 

“And what? You don’t anymore?” Raleigh sounds incredulous.

“I believe in myself,” she says defiantly. “I believe that we should be out there.”

His tone is an open challenge. “How much is that worth if you end up dead?” 

“Everything,” she snaps, wishing she could make all of them understand. Futility gnaws at her bones. She’s sick of feeling caged up, sick of feeling weak and lost, sick of consolation prizes, sick of being a good little tech, sick of the bitterness. But there isn't anything else. She’s always been good at compartmentalizing, at routing, load balancing.

Or, she thought she was. 

“I have to get back to work,” she says wearily. “Go save the world, Raleigh. I’ll be here.”

\--

That night Mako thinks of the summers in Tanegashima like she hasn't done in ages. One summer.

Summers were always hot and unbearably humid, but typhoon season was worse that year. After she’d moved into her aunt’s house at Minamitane, she’d spent what seemed like an eternity indoors, hearing the rain pound on the eaves while the media camped outside, waiting for a glimpse of Tokyo’s Daughter. She hated the name, hated the face her aunt made when she heard it on the news. 

Mako was Masao Mori’s daughter and she hated Tokyo.

Then one day, the photographers and reporters left. Maybe they’d left the day before or a week before, Mako had been too busy making sense of an English-language copy of _The Secret Garden_. It had been a gift from one of the Australian nurses--handed to her while she’d been at the skeletal Tokyo Shatterdome shortly after the Onibaba incident. The Shatterdome’s hangar doors were not even up yet, but it felt safer than the rubble around it, probably because of Coyote Tango which stood like a guardian deity at a temple entrance. Mako had never been good at English and she’d begged her aunt to find her a copy of the translated Japanese of _The Secret Garden_. Her aunt had sneered at her that she would get no special treatment from them, no matter what the media called her. So Mako had spent hours with an old Japanese-English dictionary and the nurse's worn copy, looking up words like ‘fretful,’ ‘slunk,’ and ‘cholera,’ ignoring the homework and failed tests that were piling up in her room.

It had stopped raining that day and her aunt was gone, probably to do her grocery shopping. Her uncle would be out until late. It was simple enough to walk out, taking the winding streets past the Family Mart. She didn't really have a set path in mind, but she stopped at a vending machine and bought a can of cold green tea.

Mako wound up in the outskirts, close to Tanegashima Space Center, and drank her tea there. She could still see the observation tower in the distance. The center had been closed after the financial crash of 2013, but her father had always said she could become an astronaut still -- like Naoko Yamazaki and Chiaki Mukai. Mako drank her tea as she gazed at the remains of the center, silent like a ghost town. Her father was dead. Her mother, too. 

Mako didn't want to be an astronaut anymore. Kaiju kill astronauts just like everyone else.

It started raining again when she made her way back. She returned to the vending machine and threw the can out. Rain started coming harder, thunder clamoring in the distance, and she hurried her pace.

She was completely soaked by the time she got to the gate of her aunt’s house, but it was latched shut. Mako tried it a couple of times before calling loudly.

Her aunt walked out, her face pale, mouth set hard. She was holding something in her hand. A sheet of paper, a test, Mako realized. The red ink dripped like blood down the page from where the rain hit the sheet. It was a math test. Five out of a hundred.

“What is this?” her aunt asked.

Mako couldn't think of anything to say.

Then her head snapped back, pain flowering at her cheek. It took her a moment to register that her aunt had slapped her. 

“You spoiled, useless child,” Her aunt's eyes were beady like a shrimp’s. “Maybe your father tolerated this, but we won’t. Isn’t it enough that because of you, your father’s art – _my_ father’s art-- died with him? Must you shame us like this as well? Apologize.” 

It wasn't defiance. Not then anyway, it was just that the words didn't come. She felt like there was a vacuum inside her where all the words went to die.

“Fine then,” her aunt said. Mako saw her go back into the house. The thunder was close and he held her arms around herself, feeling the heaviness of her soaked clothing as it clung to her skin. Sitting down by the gate, she pulled her knees to her chest. 

The leaves of the surrounding cedars rustled in the wind as it thundered. Mako thought she saw shadows moving between them. She felt small and alone again, like the last girl in the world. She started to cry.


	9. Chapter 9

“We’re going to have to give Mitsubishi a call. It’s not working,” Micah, one of the Tacit’s techs tells her. “The stabilizers are not coming online. We're going to have to see if they have some spare ones around.”

Mako looks up from the wiring in the Tacit’s decrepit conn pod and makes an exasperated sound. “You opened the gyro up, right?”

“Yeah, we checked for shorts and for amp draw problems. Carter thinks it might be the pins.”

Mako rubs her forehead. “That means a total frame replacement. I’ll go talk to Tendo. Micah, can you get someone in here—maybe Ibi to take over? I want a full accounting of the wiring to see if the OS is still up. It'll save us some headaches later on.”

“On it.”

The Jaeger’s parts are scattered through the repair area, legs to the far corner of the gymnasium-sized room, followed by parts of the arms several yards away. The torso and attached conn-pod are towards the front of the repair area nearest to the door, half-propped up by a rig, but leaning forward. None of the parts are that elevated from the ground, maybe a floor up, if that. Mako’s able to avoid the scaffolding stairs in favor of using the top of the head as a slide. It’s faster that way. She makes her way down to the Tacit’s repair area and further out past the rest of the Jaegers and back to mission control. LOCCENT is surprisingly full. 

“Tendo?” she calls. “Busy?”

“I’m doing a prelim check for testing,” he says without shifting his eyes from the screen. “What’s up?”

“The stabilizer hack didn't work. We’re going to have to go for a full frame replacement. I’m going to need your authorization to contact Mitsubishi.”

Tendo turns in his chair. “A replacement? For a stabilizer more than ten years old? Can’t we make something in-house?”

“I already thought of that. We might be able to customize something—maybe from the Crimson, but it’ll take too long compared to just getting the parts.”

“If they exist.” Tendo looks unconvinced. “I wouldn't be surprised if it’s just a group of spare parts scattered in labs around the globe at this point.”

“That’s still easier than reworking some of Crimson’s parts to fit. We don’t have the expertise to get it done in a reasonable time frame.”

Tendo shrugs. “All right then. I’ll get you the paperwork after I’m done here. Prepare for a lot of calls.”

She scans his monitor, thinks some of the data looks familiar, but doesn't linger. “What’s the test for?”

Mako catches his split second pause. “Neural handshake.”

“Ah.” She nods nonchalantly. “Raleigh and the candidate made it to the second round. He mentioned that they suspected drift compatibility.” Her eyes rove over the Gipsy’s readings hungrily.

“You staying?” Tendo asks after a moment.

Mako shakes her head as if breaking from a trance. “No, I should go back to the Tacit.”

\--

“Mako,” Ibi interrupts her.

“Mm?” She’s still sorting wires in the Tacit’s conn pod while she waits for a call back from Mitsubishi’s Illinois office. It’s four am over there, so she has hours before she will hear back. “Did you get me the smaller chain nose pliers—“

“The Marshal is outside.”

Mako lifts her head from the tangle of circuitry.

“He has someone with him. Wants to talk to you.”

She gives him a quizzical look. “Do you know who it is?”

Ibi shrugs. “Some big shot.” He grins. “Maybe our Jaeger daddy.”

Mako makes a face. Ever since they’d got the funding to start work on the Tacit, the name spread through the crews like wildfire. Someone had explained that it came from ‘sugar daddy’, the Jaeger’s benefactor. She’d objected that _they_ were the ones waist deep in engine parts, while some rich or profiteering CEO just wrote a check from his inland mansion, but was accused of not having a sense of humor.

Once outside the conn-pod, she catches sight of the Marshal in his severe suit. There’s a smaller figure she doesn’t recognize beside him. Mako’s just about to slide down from the Tacit’s head, but thinks better of it and takes the scaffolding stairs instead.

“Miss Mori,” the Marshal greets her. “Miss Mori,” he announces to his companion, a wizened elderly man leaning on a cane, “is overseeing the repairs to the Tacit Ronin.”

“Such a shame about its downfall,” the man says. “I remember how it took down that category two, Reconner, back in ’16.”

“This is Pavel Itskov.” The Marshal makes an introductory gesture. “He has been an important ally to us. One of the few.”

Mako wipes her sweaty palm on her pants before offering it to the man. “It is an honor. We need all the allies we can get.”

Itskov smiles as he shakes her hand. “That you do.”

“Ms. Mori oversaw the refitting of the Gipsy Danger.”

“It looked splendid. I believe the reports said you piloted as well?”

Mako’s smile freezes. “There was no one else.”

“Well, it was a splendid job of piloting as well.”

Mako lowers her eyes.

“With the reopening of the academy, I trust we will have plenty of capable pilots,” the Marshal says. “Miss Mori’s aptitude for Jaeger mechanics makes her invaluable here.” She’s a little surprised by how much the praise can feel like a slap to the face.

“How long do you estimate for the Tacit Ronin to be operational?” Itskov asks Mako.

“Hard to say.” She looks at the Marshal. “Our biggest worry is acquiring parts. Tacit was built more than a decade ago. Some of the parts were unique this model. Refashioning them from scratch won't be easy, if it comes to that.”

Itskov sighs, but his face still carries an easy-going expression. “I suppose it was too much to hope that I might see another Jaeger return from its destruction before I pass. But no matter.” He looks at the Marshal. “I alone can’t make any guarantees about Los Angeles, but I will intervene on your behalf. Ever since that Mutavore fiasco, the UN has been a bit more receptive.”

Mako doesn't have all the details, but she can gather the gist. “Will we come under their wing again?” she asks bluntly.

The Marshal shoots her a look as if she’d talked out of turn.

“It is a bureaucracy,” Itskov says. “By definition it will take some time.” He turns to the Marshal. “You must understand how much the failure of the Jaeger Program weighs on the Defense Corps.”

“I am aware,” the Marshal bristles lightly.

“Then you know there is no margin for error.” Itskov nods politely at Mako. 

“Of course.” The Marshal gestures to the exit. “Now, if you’ll accompany me to LOCCENT. I believe our Chief Technology Officer has some data for your perusal. Excuse us, Miss Mori.”

Mako bows her head.

“A pleasure making your acquaintance,” Itskov says before turning to leave.

\--

Mako manages to control her curiosity for a total of one day. She’s just gotten off the phone with some labs in Dresden, and Tendo looks at her expectantly.

“So?”

“Illinois has some of the frame, but it’s a prototype from even before. Dresden doesn’t have anything. They gave me a couple of numbers in China.” She taps her fingers on the desk anxiously. “Did the Marshal come see you with Iskov, was it?”

“The Russian? Itskov,” he corrects.

She nods. 

Tendo rummages around his desk. He makes a triumphant sound when he locates a pack of rice crackers. “Yeah, they came by a couple of days ago.” He offers some to Mako, who accepts with a murmured “thanks,” and grabs one for himself. “Didn’t stay long.”

“He came by Tacit’s repair bay.” Mako munches on the cracker thoughtfully. “Didn’t stay long there either.”

“No, I meant he left the Shatterdome that day.”

“Who is he? UN?”

“Not for a while. I mean as far as I remember.” Tendo shrugs, “I don’t know. I think he used to be.” He lowers his voice. “I think Pentecost has been trying to get him to argue for the PPDC to reopen the LA Shatterdome.”

Her eyebrows go up. “I heard of that.”

Tendo leans back into his chair. “We could use a Shatterdome on the other side of the Pacific. We definitely have the personnel for it again.” 

Mako shakes her head. “But not enough Jaegers.” She grabs another cracker from the bag. “We'd need at least three per Shatterdome and even with Tacit we only have five.”

Tendo nods. “The PPDC is pretty burned from ’24 and the wall bullshit didn't help. They’re not going to bite unless we have a rock solid kill count. So I don’t know. We’re doing good so far…”

“The attacks have let up some—we keep seeing category threes. Maybe it’s cyclical, and we’re over the fours. That was in Geiszler’s last report, wasn't it? Perhaps there’s no more category four kaiju. Or maybe they’re not battle-ready. It might give us time to get the Tacit combat-ready at least.” 

“Gottlieb thought that report was full of shit.” Tendo grabs another cracker for himself.

Mako sighs. “What’s the use of two scientists that never come to the same conclusion?”

“Just means we got to be ready for anything, any time. Same as usual.” Tendo grins.

\--

The Marshal shows up at the Tacit’s repair area the next day as Mako’s letting out her crew for lunch. 

“Itskov was impressed with your work,” the Marshal says after her techs have filed out. She walks from between piles of enormous machinery towards where he stands at the base of the Tacit’s torso.

“I haven’t been able to do much.” That should be obvious from her weekly reports. She looks up at the Tacit’s jagged head. “We still need parts. It’s going to take a year or two at this rate.”

“We predicted it would take that long given the damage. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“How close are we to opening the LA Shatterdome?” she blurts out. “That’s what Itskov meant, right? That he’s trying to convince the UN to push the Defense Corps, make them reopen the LA Shatterdome? Can he do it?”

From the way the Marshal is looking at her, Mako thinks he’ll brush the questions away, but he says, “It’s likely.”

A smile spreads across her face. Once they had eight Jaegers, and right then and there, she knows they will have eight again someday. “When it opens, does that mean we have the UN’s backing again?”

The Marshal shakes his head. “The opening of the LA Shatterdome has no bearing on whether the UN will restore the Jaeger Program. It will have to be through private funding at first. But if successful drops are conducted from there,” he says pointedly, “that would certainly be a persuasive argument.”

“No margin of error,” she quotes Itskov and the Marshal nods. “But it was the changes in kaiju attacks and their evolution that caused damage to the Jaeger Program. We couldn't have predicted the frequency of attacks in ’24.”

“No one accepts that as anything other than an excuse,” he responds sharply. “There’s too much at stake for failure. Regardless of the reason.”

He’s taken it in upon himself, she thinks. _There’s nothing you could have done. Nothing anyone could have done_ , she wants to say, but stays silent. The Marshal would not accept it.

“I meant what I said about your skills in tech work,” he says suddenly.

Mako shakes her head, feeling a now-familiar squeeze in her chest. 

“I doubt that many know the internal mechanics of a Jaeger the way you do.”

 _Why are you saying this?_ she wants to ask, but bites her lip. The Marshal has never been effusive with his praise and now it feels incongruent. Bizarre.

“I believe that the LA Shatterdome will be reopened,” he continues. “And once that happens, I will need a Chief Technology Officer to oversee drops.”

Mako smiles because it’s a crazy thought. 

“It will be within a year maybe two. More than enough time to shadow Tendo Choi. Enough time to get the bulk of the Tacit in order. There will be no question that you’re the best for the position.”

“I-I didn’t train to become a communications officer,” is the only thing she can think to say. 

“Choi had less formal experience when he started. He’s never put a Jaeger back together as you have. Never has been in a conn-pod. And he’s a damn fine J-Tech Chief. The best.”

It feels unreal to her – as unreal as when the Marshal puts his hands on her shoulders. She’s sixteen and ashamed of her combat scores, but all he says is, _Focus, and there is nothing you cannot do. Past does not determine future_. He was wrong, wasn't he?

This time he says, “If I send Jaegers to Los Angeles, I need to have someone watch over them. Guide them. I can’t think of a better person than you. You might not be inside a conn-pod, but you’ll be right there with them. I can go to the Academy for recruits, but I would rather not when the best is right here.”

Mako shakes her head. The Marshal’s hands are still on her shoulders. I don't want this, she thinks. It’s too clean. Spilled water does not return to its bowl. She backs out of his hold and there’s a flash of hurt before it dissipates into his usual calm demeanor.

“I’m just a tech,” she says.

Something in his expression gives a little. “The Gipsy can stay. Or go with you. Whatever you choose. Mako, I need someone I can trust.”

Trust to be miles away, running diagnostics, and naming kaiju. She’s past being reasonable. She can’t help but see it as token of forgiveness that she can’t grant. Maybe never.

“I’m just a tech, sir,” she repeats, tries to make herself not care. “Permission to be dismissed. I’d like to join my crew for lunch.”

\--

She hears from Tendo that the Marshal leaves the next day.

There’s an attack three days later.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm currently flying solo with this, so if there's something egregious I can fix, do drop me a line. This continues to be a rough WIP that will be polished further up once it's done. Thanks for reading <3 !

Herc Hansen presides over LOCCENT, his son off to the side with his customary glum look. Mako understands his demeanor more than she’s willing to admit. She tries to focus on the scene in front of her, rather than seeking Raleigh and his new copilot out. She’s almost proud that she’s managed to avoid all concrete information about them. Mako doesn’t even know the copilot’s name. Doesn’t care.

Tendo had given the call for two category fours. Crimson Typhoon and Cherno are on their way. Mako is watching their trajectory on Tendo’s monitor when Geiszler rushes in. 

“You have to send more than two in,” he says breathlessly.

Hansen looks at him oddly. “What?”

“Two Jaegers. Not going to be enough for four kaiju.”

“There’s two,” Tendo corrects.

“Did no one read my report?” Geiszler spreads out his arms. “Category fours can replicate when the situation calls for it.”

“That’s only happened once.”

“I thought it might have been coincidence too!” Geiszler bounces on the balls of his feet. “I think it has to do with their communication and with the duration of the conflict. Mutavore, Otachi, and Leatherback were brought down faster than Tengu and Charybdis. In fact, from those encounters we saw that they can do coordinated attacks. They’re getting better at them.”

Hansen shakes his head. “Gipsy just got through her first test with a new pilot copilot pair—they’re doing their test run debrief right now at med bay. I’m not sending her out unless I absolutely have to. Besides, the kaiju are too far out now. Gipsy will never make it in time.”

“Cherno Alpha approaching,” Sasha Kaidanovsky’s voice comes through the comm. 

“Careful out there.” Herc says. “Dr. Geiszler says that there’s a danger of replication. Crimson, you too.”

“Copy,” a chorus of pilot voices call.

Mako follows the movement on Tendo’s monitors, not just the stats of Jaegers but the movement of the Kaiju, growing more difficult to predict the further they move away from the Breach. 

“Shit! They’re fast,” Tendo mutters.

“Will they reach land mass before Cherno and Crimson get there?” Hansen asks.

“I don’t think so, but they’ll be close.”

“You have to send another Jaeger in,” Geiszler entreats. “Two isn’t enough.”

“If you don’t shut up your bloody trap, Geiszler , I swear…” Hansen mutters and Geiszler remains silent for a moment.

A long tense moment passes before one of the triplets’ voices—Jin? Mako seems to recall he handles the comm-- comes through. “Coming up to Tokyo Bay. We have visibility. Preparing to disengage transport.”

“Copy.” Tendo hits some controls. 

“Transport disengaged,” Jin responds.

Tendo brings up Cherno on his monitor. “Cherno, how far out are you?”

It’s Sasha’s’ voice which again replies, “Three clicks. Limited visibility. Preparing to disengage transport.”

“I see something near you Cherno. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Copy. Transport disengaged.”

“I lost it.” Tendo’s hands whoosh across the display, zooming in then out in different locations.

“Lost what?” Geiszler asks.

“Banshee’s signal! They’re too far from the continental shelf. Kaiju have no thermal signature. Crimson! Crimson, do you have a visual? You should have visual of Kikimora. I see her on my screen.”

“We see something.” There’s a pause. “Confirm. We have visual of Kikimora. Preparing to engage via Thundercloud Formation.”

“What about you, Cherno” Hansen asks. “Any trace of Banshee?”

“Negative. Kikimora confirmed, approaching Miracle Mile.”

Tendo hands are still gliding over every nook and corner of the display. He makes a frustrated sound. “No trace of Banshee. Crimson, could Banshee have gotten past you and hit land?”

“Negative. We would have visual.”

“It could be heading anywhere,” Tendo mutters without stopping his search, “Sapporo, Seoul, Taipei…”

On the other side of the display, Mako sees Crimson strike a hit against Kikimora. The kaiju recoils. It swipes at the Crimson with its tail. The Crimson grabs it and tosses it. Kikimora lands several yards from Cherno.

“Still no visual of Banshee, Cherno?” Herc asks.

“Negative. Permission to engage.”

“Not yet, we still don’t know where the Banshee is,” Herc replies.

“It’s not there,” Tendo insists.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Still no Banshee.” Sasha’s voice sounds impatient.

“You’re cleared to engage, Cherno,” Herc says

“Have-have you looked above?” Geiszler ventures quietly. All eyes turn to him. “The previous category four, Otachi, could fly, right?”

“Check above you!” Hansen voice blares through mission control.

“Currently occupied with Kikimora,” Sasha responds. Mako sees Cherno begin its assault on the wounded kaiju.

“Then Crimson, keep your eyes on the sky.”

“It’s too fast.” Aleksis sounds winded. “Kikimora is heading back to Crimson Typhoon. Wait.”

“I see another signal!” Tendo yells triumphantly.

“Cherno, Crimson do you have visual on Banshee,” Herc asks.

There’s radio silence for one tense moment. Then it’s Jin’s voice that calls out. “No visual on Banshee. It’s Kikimora, sir, it’s replicated.”

“I knew it!” Geiszler calls out, excitedly. His enthusiasm is dampened somewhat when Chuck seizes him roughly by the collar. “One more useless word out of you,” he hisses. “And I will personally escort you out to the heliport and toss you out into the Pacific, so you can have tea with your pals. Got it?”

“Ow. Okay. _Okay_.” Geiszler raises his hands.

“Was that necessary?” Herc glares at Chuck.

“Well, I don’t know, maybe—“

A shake interrupts him, sending Mako forward. She grabs onto the nearest desk and narrowly avoids careening to the floor. When she looks up, she sees that Chuck and Geiszler haven’t been so lucky.

“What—“ Chuck begins as he stands, a hand on his side

“Tendo!” Herc had propped himself up with the desk.

He slides his hand over the display. “No movement on the Manila Tre—“

“We have movement near Dadong Bay!” One of the other communications techs yells out. “Huge water displacement as a result from the earthquake. It’s headed towards us.”

“What? I see no earthquake…There must have been one though…” Tendo’s already opening other browser windows and going through the readings. “Shit. Get everyone inside. Everyone and everything out on the heliport needs to be inside. The tsunami will hit us in twenty. ”

Herc catches up quickly. “Now!” he orders to the techs that have gathered. “Get everyone inside.”

Mako rushes out with the rest of them. A couple of other techs have beaten her to the punch there’s a few with loudspeakers across the platforms. 

“This is a tsunami warning,” they say. “Please move inside in an orderly fashion.”

Most of the workers out in the heliport look at them in disbelief. Visibility is low out to Victoria Harbor, but it always is, and there’s no sign that the water is anything but calm. Hong Kong has never been prone to tsunami and with the Cherno and Crimson out, the techs are loathe to leave their posts. They trickle out in twos and threes. A couple of the helicopters start up, but there’s still several grounded.

Mako goes near the hangar entrance and hits the comm code.

“LOCCENT,” the operator answers. “State your business.”

“They’re clearing the heliport too slowly. Sound the kaiju alarm or you won’t get people out of here fast enough otherwise.”

“This code doesn’t have that clearance—“

“Tell Sergeant Hansen that Mori has requested it!” She clicks off the comm and turns back to the heliport just in time to feel another earthquake that sends her sprawling. As she gets off she sees a shadow materialize at the horizon of the haze.

Time stops and even the loudspeakers fall silent.

In a cruel irony, the kaiju alarm begins to blare. Skepticism changes to horror, to sick fear in the faces of all around her. The monster in the far away mist lets out an ear splitting cry, just as the heliport breaks into a panicked rush of people into the Shatterdome hangar.

Mako stays still as the creature breaks through the mist. The sound of water rushing breaks her spell. The creature lets out another roar and she runs in with the crowd. The ground shakes as it nears.

“Hangar door one is closing. Go through door two and three!” one of the techs says through the loudspeaker as the first door slowly closes.

The remaining crowd is dispersed into the second and third doors for several minutes. Water begins to rush in. Mako waves at the techs and points to the second door, spreading her feet to make sure the shake of the ground doesn’t make her fall. Water continues to accumulate, covering her boots.

The tech nods. “Hangar door two is closing, please go through door three,” she says and the thinning stream of people shifts once more. Mako runs to the second door keys in the code. The door slowly closes in front of her.

Finally only the techs cluster around the last door. “What’s wrong?” Mako asks when she ducks in. All of the people at the heliport have been cleared out. Brackish water keeps gathering on the floor. 

“The water or something must have damaged the circuit,” another tech says, a note of hysteria coming into his voice.

Mako tries inputing the code herself. The display only flashes. More shaking. She avoids looking out.

“Do we have a manual override?” yet another tech asks. 

“Here,” the first tech inputs another code. “There’s a couple of handles. We have to do this quick before more water gets in. Everyone grab a handle!”

Mako joins the group of techs in pulling the enormous door. The water makes it difficult to get a stable footing, but it finally slides shut. 

“Okay!” The same tech yells out. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to reinforce—“

“Mako!”

She whirls to find Raleigh running towards her in his drivesuit.

“Come on!” He yells furiously as the other tech continues barking instructions. “You need to suit up.”

Her brain trips on the statement. She must have heard wrong. “What?”

“We’re doing a drop,” he pants, and waves her to come with him.

Mako follows, stomach knotting as she breaks into a jog. It’s not until they’re at the lift is and almost at the floor of the drivesuit room that she gathers enough bravery to ask, “Wait. What about…your copilot?”

“You’re my copilot!” Raleigh says point-blank. The doors open and he dashes out with a yelled. “Hurry!” over his shoulder.

They burst into the drivesuit room and Mako has no time for nostalgia.

Her circuitry suit is out and, while in normal drops she’d be given time to pull it on in a discrete corner of the room, right now, she all but dives into it, peeling off her clothes as quickly as her limbs will let her. The suit techs must have been expecting her. She’s not thinking of the Marshal or the Tacit, she’s thinking of the increasing violence of the shaking that wracks the Shatterdome. Her own pound of kaiju flesh.

The techs adjust her second layer almost as fast as she’s pulling and zipping the first layer up. She yanks on the helmet and from the corner of her eye sees that Raleigh is waiting. 

She dashes into the conn-pod, techs in tow hooking them into the interface drivers, running their checks as quickly as they can. Mako runs her own pre-deployment suit check and pre-drift link analysis.

“How does it look. Gipsy?” Tendo’s voice comes through the comm.

“Clear,” Raleigh says. He looks over to her. “Mako?”

“Wait…,” Tendo stumbles.

“Mako?” Herc Hansen’s voice interrupts. “What are—“

“Clear! Ranger number R dash MMAK two oh four dot nineteen V, confirm permission to deploy.”

“Negative!” Hansen barks. “Miss Mori, you do not have permission—Becket, what about your current co--“

Another loud bang and a shake that would have sent them sprawling if it weren’t for the locks on the command platform.

“We don’t have time for this, Herc,” Raleigh says through gritted teeth.

“They’re right,” Tendo echoes. “We need to deploy now!”

“Confirm permission to deploy.” Mako tries again.

“Granted,” Hansen responds. “Mako, the Marshall--.”

“Copy. Release for drop.” Mako meets Raleighs eyes and hits a switch on the command console. He repeats the motion on the other side and the conn pod jerks into place. The Gipsy fires to life.

“Ready to deploy.” Raleigh’s voice is firm, but she senses uncertainty. 

“Prepare to engage neural handshake,” Hansen responds. Tendo starts the countdown.

“Don’t make me regret this, Mako,” Raleigh mutters. 

But she’s already closed her eyes. Mako draws up the memory of their bout in combat room. He meets her strike and her perspective shifts. She sees herself launch another. He lifts his own bamboo stick to counter it—

And there’s a roaring in her ears, the dog tag chain biting into his neck, a counterpoint to the yielding softness of her lips. The memory melts away, supplanted by one another: on the floor, a body thrashes violently and _oh god, it’s not stopping, what’s wrong, I did something wrong, it’s not stopping, it won’t stop, please let it stop, it’s not stopping_ \--

—that’s her-- 

Then with a forceful –shove-- and Mako’s back to herself. 

“Gipsy you’re out of align—

“You pushed me out!” Mako yells. “We don’t have time—“

“I know that!” Raleigh snaps. “Shut up and give me a second.”

She scrunches her eyes tight and recenters herself. Her world shrinks and she feels around the link. The connection is weaker than it’s been. 

“Neural handshake unstable,” the A.I. announces.

“Raleigh, focus!” But he won’t meet her in the middle. His mind is a mess of tumultuous images. She’s losing him. The link is slipping. 

“I’m trying!” 

And she knows where the contact point is. She intuits that what she’s about to do isn’t right, but they don’t have time, and she tears past his resistance, past the web he’s caught in with something akin to tunnel vision. She locates the mirror memory amidst the chaos and _pulls_ hard.

They’re at the mats and she’s looking at herself through his eyes. _This is where I am. This is where you are._ Then the perspective shifts and she’s back to herself.

Mako breathes deep, eyes opening, Raleigh now at the edges of her awareness. His embarrassment washes over her and beneath it, a pale lance of anger, carefully kept in check, lest it harm their already precarious connection.

 _Don’t ever do that again_.

 _I’m sorry_. She sends to him a gesture not dissimilar to outstretched palms. Her headspace open in invitation. 

There’s the faintest hesitancy and their minds fold into one into the other in a seamless fit. A cold focus encompasses them both, and spreads outwards to the Gipsy’s behemoth structure. 

It feels like surfacing.

“Neural handshake stable and holding,” the A.I. croons.


	12. Chapter 12

Another bang and the whole Shatterdome shakes.

“Gipsy, we can’t open the main hangar doors. It’ll flood the hangar. Prepare to go topside,” Tendo says.

“Are you sure? If that thing is just outside it’ll put the transport in danger.” Raleigh scans the external readings on the HUD.

“No choice, Rangers. Hang tight until you get to Scramble Alley,” Hansen’s voice intervenes.

Mako sees the Tendo deactivate the supports and feels the quick jar as the conveyor belt starts moving. Tendo’s linked LOCCENT’s data to the Gipsy’s own sensory arrays. According to the readings, Banshee’s just outside, throwing its gargantuan weight against the hangar doors.

“It brought the fight to us,” Raleigh mutters. Mako sees the beginnings of a plan. 

“Can the heliport support our weight?” she asks.

“Negative,” Tendo replies.

She feels Raleigh’s frown. They’d want the helicopters hauling them to clear out as soon as possible. A beep and the display blinks that the transport has been set in place. The machinery creaks and groans as it is lifted. 

Raleigh’s thinking of the Cherno’s spiked feet.

_We could activate the sword once we’re out of the Shatterdome_

“I think we should get it away from the Shatterdome.”

Mako gets fleeting images of the transport taking them further than the kaiju, leaving them several yards away.

“I don’t think it’s that risky for the helicopters,” Raleigh replies to her unvoiced question. “They can continue inland.” She estimates the coordinates for the drop and he sends them to the transport. 

The Gipsy emerges from the hatch and the readings sharpen becoming more accurate. She can’t see the creature just yet, but she does see the brackish water, a thin layer of it coating the platform of the heliport. With every impact, the water streams everywhere. As they gather more height, Mako sees a couple of helicopters towards the back, teetered over like wounded animals.

 _Once we engage, we have a time limit_. She thinks of Tengu and Geizsler’s announcement.

“Shit.” He hadn’t known. “Plasma cannon.”

 _Plasma cannon_. Mako beams. She’d wanted to try it out for so long. It’d be a range of how much? She runs through the calculations. Raleigh is smirking at her giddiness, but she’s too excited to pay it much mind. 

Banshee comes into view, too caught up in its rampage to notice them as they come up on its side several yards away. It looks like a praying mantis, Mako can make out at least six legs under its trunk-like torso, and from it a long neck and a triangular head. The monster eventually notices them, its neck and head turning in their direction.

“Preparing to disengage transport,” Mako says quickly. She inputs the command and feels the snap as the wires open and they begin to fall. “Transport disengaged.” Mako’s stomach drops a bit at the feeling of weightlessness. 

“Thanks guys,” the words are barely out of Raleigh’s mouth when the kaiju opens its mouth and hisses a blinding wave of light.

The HUD flickers a little, but the comm goes silent. The have no time to reflect on it--the helicopters are falling beside them like dead flies. She looks in horror as two crash into each other before dropping to the turf. The Gipsy hits the water first in a crouch and an impulse pulls Mako towards the helicopters. 

_Nothing we can do for them._ She’s not sure whether it’s her thought or Raleigh’s but it’s true nonetheless. And after, as they bring up the Gipsy to full standing position, the loss has been replaced by a familiar burn.

“Tendo? Tendo!” Raleigh calls. She feels him intervene and the rage becomes more precise. “Has to be that EMP signal. LOCCENT’s gone dark.”

Banshee has taken the opportunity to begin climbing up the Jaeger hangar doors with its thick front legs. They wade towards it quickly. The water reaches the Gipsy’s shoulders, making them slower than they would be otherwise. 

_We won’t make it to Banshee on time_. She begins activating the plasma canon.

“We’re at the lower bound of our range,” Raleigh warns as they keep moving.

 _The impact will be enough to make it fall_.

“Careful with targeting.” They double check the numbers. Any misses would be disastrous to the Shatterdome. 

“Fire!” She pulls her arm back. The cannon fires and the recoil hits harder than she expected, it would have thrown them back had it not been for the water. Mako makes a note to fix that. 

She follows the ion blast to its target, Banshee’s trunk. The kaiju wails and loses its grip, smoke coming out of where the blast hit. Some of Banshee’s blood eats through a spot between the hangar doors and the heliport. 

They’re still rushing towards the creature. The water level is a problem.

 _We need to get it to land. It’s more comfortable here than we are._.

“We can’t risk it bleeding all over the place. The dockyards. “ 

She nods. _Have to keep it from going east_. The residential area. 

Banshee is just resuming its climb when they reach it. They grab it by the neck and force it back as it flails, legs making claw marks on the Shatterdome metal and denting the Gipsy’s armor. 

They miscalculated -- something Mako realizes when Banshee spreads its giant wings. 

But Banshee is not Otachi. It doesn’t have the strength to lift the Gipsy. The force of its wings does give it a boost, as does it’s relatively light body. It snakes out of their grip, climbing up the Jaeger, dangerously close to the conn pod. 

Mako calls up the sword, but the creature pushes Gipsy back as it uses its shoulders to gain impulse to fly. The sword passes through a couple of its back legs. The shocking mechanism hadn’t had time to boot up and she hears Raleigh’s pained cry as its poisonous blood drips down the right side of the Gipsy’s back. She concentrates on the pain, breathing deep as she draws it into herself.

“We need to shoot it down!” She hears Raleigh grunt out.

Banshee is crawling up the structure slowly, its amputated legs leaving a smoldering trail. If it gets higher it’d be halfway up to Tsing Yi Peak behind it, a hairsbreadth from the estates. Raleigh targets, and her heart sinks.

 _Out of range,_ she replies. _We need to make it over the hangars first. Or at least an elevated area_.

It’s not an easy task by any means—not with the high water levels and the Gipsy’s own stocky build.

“If we go through the side, we’ll take too long.” They’re all ready moving towards the hangars. 

_I’m not sure if the hangar can stand our weight_. Mako bites her lip. More collateral damage.

“No way to check with Tendo either.” She feels more than hears his grim determination. They pull themselves up and out of the water by the top edge of the hangar. She does the targeting as soon as their feet are firmly planted on top of the structure, fires.

The Gipsy’s left foot falls clean through the roof, misdirecting the blast. Mako looks in horror as it lands beside the kaiju and blows a sizable chunk of the building. The impact and the surprise make Banshee lose its grip. It falls, dropping onto the heliport. Debris launches everywhere. They run towards it with a single thought: it mustn’t fall though. Mustn’t fall _into_ the Shatterdome. 

They grab the monster but the added weight makes their movement on the roof of the hangar more precarious, even as they try to keep to the edge, where the roof and the doors meet. They fling Banshee off to the west side and jump off the hangar after it.

Raleigh targets, fires again, scoring a hit. Banshee is screeching at it crashes down into the water bellow. A resulting wave of heat and steam shoots them back and against the Shatterdome’s structure. Her upper back lights up with pain. She grits her teeth, knowing Raleigh isn’t doing much better. They stand through it and appraising the thrashing creature, now in death’s grip.

“I’m pretty sure being a tech hurts less than this,” he groans.

“Less fun,” she replies out loud, arming the canon. “Fire!” Banshee stills at the ensuing blast. Steam and smoke rise with every pulse of the cannon.

Raleigh’s obviously not subscribing to that approach right now. “It’s going to be a lot less fun when they do the battle damage assessment,” he says once there’s only smoke and a carcass of blue left in the swirling, now-receding waters.

 _Not going to think about that right now_. She all but shoves the thought back at him.

“Okay, okay.”

Mako doesn’t hesitate. There’s another kaiju out there. She clicks on the comm. Nothing. _How long will LOCCENT be dark?_

“I don’t know.”

She does a quick check on their injuries.

“We’re fine. Made it through with all our weapons intact. It’s a good day.”

Mako’s not as convinced. She’s pretty sure engaging kaiju so close to the Shatterdome is against mission protocol, not to mention her miss. And there’s still Cherno—

 _None of that could have been prevented_. Raleigh interjects into her train of thought.

In spite of herself, her mind calls up the Marshal’s words, _No one accepts that as anything other than an excuse_. She stops the thought before the memory fleshes up. To his credit, Raleigh gives her distance, though she’s sure he must have seen it.

“Stay in the now,” she murmurs to herself and focuses on their situation. It’s surprisingly hard when there’s not a giant monster out for blood. _We’re not so injured we can’t manually get out and see how LOCCENT is doing_.

It’s his exasperation that hits her first, followed by a worry that immediately knots up her insides. His, she realizes, attempting to ride the emotion out without digging into it. In the drift, there’s always the temptation of actively looking underneath what lies unsaid--just as there is the danger of letting something private slip. But there’s also always etiquette. Common courtesy.

 _That’s one way to look at it_. The worry eases up to his usual levity.

She rolls her eyes. _You don’t have to reply to everything. But we could get out._

Now, the feeling is back to exasperation. _That’s not going to work for you. Once the drift disengages you’ll be under combat stress again_.

Mako blinks at that.

The exasperation becomes a little…angry? The mess of emotions is pushed away to something neutral. “You forgot,” he says out loud.

She doesn’t really know what to respond. There were other things to think about like fighting kaiju, collateral damage, the plasma cannon’s functioning--which was not at all what she anticipated, and she’s going to have to file that away later, because that did not work like she intended and she really needs to sharpen her targeting skills under pressure. It’s unacceptable that she have caused that much damage to the Shatterdome-- how many people must have been in that wing? The Marshal would have never accepted that. He would be so upset, and LOCCENT was dark and the people there maybe never saw it coming--

 _Stop_.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of the drift is someone else watches you get lost in your thoughts, Mako winces. Thoughts and memories are different. Getting lost in memories is disastrous. Getting lost in thoughts is embarrassing. And knowing your copilot has a front row seat to that embarrassment is another thing entirely.

“Are you still taking downers?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “A lower dosage, but yes.” She takes a breath. “A lot of the symptoms didn’t even show up until several drops later. I think it will be fine if we unplug. Otherwise we’re stuck here for how long? Hours? Half a day? Who knows when LOCCENT is going to come up again.”

He doesn’t like the thought, she can tell. In fact, judging from his initial response, he pretty much hates it.

When he speaks his words are far more measured. “LOCCENT doesn’t need to be up for them to get us in the Shatterdome. All they need is the transport.”

“And then what?” she presses. “We wait there instead of here? It makes no difference.”

“We’re closer to med bay in there.”

Mako doesn’t even bother to reply, just dismisses the thought outright.

And she’s hit with an image of herself thrashing on the floor, a feeling of _oh god, it’s not stopping, what’s wrong, I did something wrong, it’s not stopping, it won’t stop, please let it stop, it’s not stopping_. It’s interspersed with the feel of his lips on hers and—

Now, she’s just angry. Raleigh’s presence in her mind braces itself, almost as if to prevent getting shoved out.

It makes her angrier. She wouldn’t disengage the neural handshake for something so trivial. At this stage in the neural handshake, she would have to either be under physical duress or actively _decide_ to disconnect the link.

“This is not the time or place for any of that,” she snaps.

 _What?_ She gathers this isn’t the outburst he’s expecting.

“According to psychological studies on drift connection sexual fantasies intervene with the neural handshake. They trigger the modesty reflex--this is first year stuff, Raleigh!”

Now it’s just a painful discomfort that teeters close to… fear? His emotions are all over the map and it’s through sheer force of will she doesn’t dig up the source, just to get rid of all the weirdness.

 _You did say not to dig through your thoughts again_ , she explicitly addresses him. _But you’re blaring them out at me_.

 _You’re wrong, you know_. He’s reluctant, but fights on, brushing off her last statement. _Fantasy is not processed in the same way. It’s not in the same place as memory either, brain-wise. An imagined scenario can’t gather enough force to become an impulse trigger. You’d have to have difficulty differentiating what’s real and that profile would never make it through the first set of evals for the academy. What they say in the Academy is that the modesty reflex is triggered by sexual memory, and trying to hide it screws up the link. Anyway, I think we should deactivate everything except the Pons until LOCCENT comes back up._

Mako stumbles at the last, not expecting him to go toe to toe with her like that. She’s having a hard time piecing it all together, between the unease and reluctance he’s blaring. He’s not holding any of it back. She intuits it’s probably because he thinks it would harm the link, but navigating through the tangle of feelings while paying attention to what he’s saying takes concentration. Her focus teeters. There’s exhaustion lurking somewhere at the edge of her thoughts, but she refuses to give in. _What?_

_We don’t need the weapons system and we’re not going anywhere._

There’s something else. _And?_

 _And I think there’s something I need to tell you and I rather not do it with tons of machinery hooked up to you_.

 _Wait, wait, wait. We don’t know anything about Cherno and Crimson. What if LOCCENT comes back up and they need us? Booting up the system here could take more than half an hour_.

He doesn’t think it’ll be necessary, but is willing to concede a half-measure. _Stand-by then? ___

Mako sighs. _Fine_. She inputs the code and he follows. The Gipsy’s weapons deactivate and main systems power down, all but the essential life support and the Pons. 

__Mako’s never done that before, and it feels a little strange, almost like being disembodied, she imagines. She can still move, but there’s an odd disconnect between her consciousness and her physical body-- probably where the Gipsy should be. Once all the systems are scaled back, she feels Raleigh relax a little and it irritates her.__

 _I chased the RABIT once, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to do it again_.

___That’s not it._ There’s a dark humor in all of it, but it’s intangible to her, like a joke she’s not in on. She makes no effort to conceal her impatience and his response is similar to a wince. This might just be the worst timing ever. The thought is not directed at her, but she catches it all the same._ _

___So all the impulse triggers you’ve been seeing since we initiated the drift, or rather, the impulse trigger is real. It has to do with the night of your seizure_._ _

_I gathered that_. Hard to miss with the persistent image of her seizing up on the floor. 

__He’s irked at the sarcastic undercurrent. _You don’t make anything easy, do you?__ _

Mako thinks part of it probably has to do with the drift and her exhaustion. The feedback loop between them amplifies every small annoyance. But maybe she’s being more defensive than she should be. _Sorry. Go on_. 

__Raleigh’s still wary. _So you were in my room when it happened_._ _

_I went to talk about the plasma cannon._ Unbidden the images of her messy room float up, the repeated equations, the overwhelming sense of not-me. Mako feels him recoil, and clamps down on her embarrassment. 

_No, no, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You couldn’t have done anything—it’s me. I made a mistake. I thought you were…yourself and things got out of hand_. 

_What mistake? What do you mean me being me? What do you mean ‘out of hand’_ It hits her like a block of lead. Her hand instinctively goes to cover her mouth and bangs into her helmet instead. _We slept together_. 

She feels the wince again. _Kind of…_. 

Mostly she’s surprised that she could forget. She’s never been the sort, it feels uncomfortably risky. Then she remembers it’s with her copilot and it feels doubly so...but if she were to sleep with anyone, her copilot seems like the best choice. It’s not like in the previous drift hangovers the thought hadn’t occurred to her, not like she hadn’t thought he was attractive -- and someone she trusts couldn't have been bad, especially if the conclusion was her flailing like a fish—her mind conjures up the secondhand image--having to be taken in… 

Mako reigns herself in. Sometimes the problem with the drift is when you forget that there’s someone there, even if they’re silent. She’s not about to cut the connection— 

_You can’t!_ Raleigh intervenes. Overly paranoid. _We don’t know if you can handle the load_. 

_I wasn’t about to_ , she snaps. But she does need some space to process things. Mako takes a breath and clears her thoughts, begins to go through the Gipsy’s hydraulic system part by part, visualizing each one. 

Raleigh’s still there, a silent, if wary, presence in the back of her mind. 


	13. Chapter 13

The attempt to concentrate on something else was a good choice, but doomed to fail from the get-go. She gets as far as most of the electroactive polymers below the right chest plate before she gives up. It’s her memory too, she thinks. 

_Show me_.

Raleigh’s taken off guard by the demand. _What?_

_The memory is half mine, isn’t it? The night I had the seizure? I should see it_.

Raleigh’s somewhat persuaded, but her tone puts him off. _Mako, it’s not yours if it’s in my head_.

 _You try losing your memories and being polite about it_.

__

You’re making me regret telling you. He doesn’t mean it.

_And you don’t think there’s anything wrong with you keeping this memory from me?_

_You’ll be seeing it while in my head--that’s different._ His conflict plays out before her. Part of him wants to, but there’s that silent, wary part holding him back. Something like it’s too personal, but the thought is not directed at her and full of self-recriminations. Mako tries to give him distance. 

_Why do you want it anyway?_

_Why wouldn’t I want it?_ she retorts. Otherwise there’s just a gap.

 _Because it ends badly_.

 _I know how it ends_. And it’s all she’s lived with for the past months.

Mako feels him relent, but the unease is still there. She can understand it. If the drift is difficult for the way random memories surface from time to time, to drift into a copilot’s memory is unheard of outside of emergency protocols where the copilot is grievously wounded. Then there’s the matter of getting lost chasing someone else’s rabbit. If she thinks about it too much it makes her uncomfortable, so she pushes the thought away. My memory she thinks, just secondhand. I can make it mine.

 _Have you done this before?_ she can’t help asking.

Mako feels his nod. _A couple of times with Yance. I’ll pull you out. You won’t get lost_.

 _I know_.

_Just…careful. It’s still my head._

She hadn’t thought of the risk to him, but if anything he could always yank her out.

 _That would hurt. Doesn’t scar, but it’s not fun_.

Mako feels dully chastised.

_I’m not scolding you. Just a heads up_. The good humor is back at the edge of his nervousness. 

Mako gives herself over to the decenteredness of the drift, floats along aimlessly. At first, it’s her memories that surface: her father’s face over the furnace, her making the calculations for the chain sword, that plunge to earth after slicing Otachi in half, the euphoria of another successful drop, he and Yancy being better than any pair had any right to be in the simulator. 

That time in Lima when they’d tried to score dates for a night in the city, and spent it playing chess instead. “No one wants to go out with freaks,” Yance said. “Next time we cut the creepy mind reader shit.” And it was just what he’d been thinking. Drift hangovers always fucked shit up. 

Raleigh was pretty sure Mako felt like that too. Like a part of your copilot crawled into your brain and set up camp, their memories all tangled up with your own. Until one day you woke up normal again.

Except "Stress response can merge with a sexual response," Yancy had said. Raleigh had always thought he was just being a dick about chasing tail. Like he needed some sort of deterministic reasoning to do it. But he’s looking at Mako whose eyes are getting downer glassy by the second and maybe Yance deserved more credit than Raleigh gave him, the bastard. They’ve kept it chaste, but Mako’s wound up tighter than a two dollar watch.

Banging on the door wakes him. It’s loud and he can hear movement next door, just before they start yelling. He doesn’t hear any kaiju alarms.

Raleigh stumbles to the door and opens it. The corridor lights are too bright. 

Mako’s there clutching her notepad. “Jesus, Mako.” His neighbors are yelling in earnest now, despite the knocking having stopped. “What time is it?”

She says something in Japanese and it takes his sleep-addled brain a second to process that she said “Four-thirty.” Without the drift connection, it’s not so easy.

He sits on the bed, noticing she’s clutching the notepad for dear life. Her eyes keep darting across the room, like she’s scared something’s going to come out at her. 

Mako dives into a long winded explanation of something in Japanese that she delivers while pacing up a storm. He catches “chain sword” and “drops” before his brain shorts out. He watches her for a few seconds before realizing that even she’s not really invested in what she’s saying. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says lifting a hand to stop her. “It’s way too early for Japanese.”

Her eyes zero on him, confused. “I thought you spoke...”

Raleigh rubs his face. Too early to ‘fess up that he’d only picked up a couple of phrases and that the rest was the drift. When he speaks it comes out garbled. “It’s been a while. I don’t. I mean, I do. Not speak. I understand. I mean, I understand _you_ \--you’re the left brain.” He winces, realizing how garbled his thoughts came out. “I’ll tell you later.”

She looks at him for a second before starting up again. “The Gipsy’s magnetic bottle is dated and we could use—“

He finds himself leaning forward, partly wanting to laugh, partly wanting to shake her. “You’re thinking about repairs at four-thirty in the morning?” Because of course she isn’t. He’d seen enough of her mind to know she’s smokescreening for something else.

“Not repairs.” Mako pushes her notepad at him. “Modifications. These are some preliminary schematics with calc—“

“No…just no.“ Fake-discussing engineering shit at dawn is beyond him. “It’s four-thirty in the morning, I am not reading that. No.” He stands up and pushes her gently towards the door. “Go back to bed, Mako.” 

“I can’t!”

Her outburst takes him by surprise.

“I haven’t slept a full night since we got back,” she spits out. “I can’t concentrate, and meditation doesn’t work. I’ve been going to the combat room every night.”

“And?”

She shakes her head. “It’s worse.”

“Have you talked to medical about it? Who’s in charge of Psych—Acheson?”

“Not since the first drift.” He notices she’s clenching and unclenching her fist beside her. “They wouldn’t let me in a conn-pod, if they knew. But you’ve been inside my head.” Mako stops suddenly and faces him. “You would know. You would know if there’s something… wrong.” She swallows convulsively. “Is there something wrong?”

He thinks for a second, “No.” There isn’t anything he can pinpoint. “Not that I saw. But this is too long for combat stress.”

“I had it last time. Before the last drop.” She closes her eyes, presses an open palm against her chest, like she’s holding something in. “It feels like pressure. I can’t breathe. I can’t stay still. I’m thinking until nothing makes sense, and I can’t stop.” 

It still sounds like combat stress to him. An acute version of it maybe, but no one reacts the same way. “Mako,” he finally says. “You shouldn’t be spending so much time alone. The crews--“

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t help. None of it helps.”

“Then maybe you need to get out of the Shatterdome for a day.”

She shakes her head again.

He fights off the impulse to berate her. It’s just like Mako to blow everything off in the name of self sufficiency. How she could have no problems working with him in a Jaeger, but be so standoffish outside of one never ceased to amaze him. “You have to work with me here.”

Then it’s like a lightbulb lit up in her head. Some sort of comprehension dawns on her and she mutters, “I shouldn’t have come.” She shuts her eyes and he thinks he recognizes that expression, a bit deeper than embarrassment. In Mako obviously, it’d be dialed up to eleven. “You don’t –you don’t—you don’t understand—anything,” she says, but it’s not directed at him. 

“No, no.” He can’t let her leave. Not like this. He places a hand on her forearm, because it’s ok. “Mako—“

“I need to go now,” she says as if to convince herself. “I need—“

He kisses her with more force than he intended. The surprise sends her back and he hears the dull sound of her back hitting the wall. He thinks, okay, this is when we talk about sex and the therapeutic benefits thereof. We will be adults about this. He’s about to pull away, but her hand is at his upper arm, fingers digging into his bicep, her other snakes around his dog tag chain, pulling at it hard enough to make it bite against his neck. And all calculation flies out the window. Sheer want is written in the yield of her body, the steeliness of her grip.

They’ve been in the vicinity of this since the second drift, or was it the third? He can’t be sure of much except the soft fabric of her tank top, the heat of her mouth. His mind is already a million miles ahead, contemplating what it’d be like to pull her tank top up and drag his tongue across the hard tips of her nipples.

Her hands are at his head, kisses growing more feverish. Her leg slides between his, brushing against his cock and he breathes in, hand tightening around her waist convulsively. He can imagine her stretched out on his bed below him, face contorting with pleasure. But it’s a fleeting image, the feel of her hands at his sides, her mouth at the edge of his jaw is more urgent. When she whispers, “Touch me,” rocking her hips against him, it’s not like he can do anything else.

Raleigh slides a hand under her tank top, ducks his head to suck lightly at the skin of her neck. Mako shudders, letting out a cry that would be startling if she wasn’t pressing herself against every inch of him. Her skin is burning, sweat-slick, and intoxicating. Her responsiveness is beyond anything he’d imagined, changing from simple want to something more directed as she gets rid of her pants.

He feels a vague shadow of disappointment when she pulls away, dialed back once her mouth is back on his. Mako takes his hand and presses it between her legs. Her underwear is soaked, and he groans, because she is here regardless, and its _him_ her body is this responsive to. It’s not without a small measure of pride that he thinks that he can see her through, four am booty call or not. 

Raleigh cups her through the drenched cloth and her hips buck. When he kisses her she tastes like desperation. He slides the underwear off, wanting to learn her, to map out what he likes, but she’s making it difficult with her squirming, the relentless shift of her hips. He attempts to hold her still with a hand at her hip, but an impatient moan rips out of her.

It’s not a difficult calculus. Cursing inwardly at the clutter at his desk he hauls her over, knocking everything off. He yanks her hips forward to the edge, kneeling between her legs until his world is nothing but the musky, earthy smell of her and the tang of her on his tongue. She jerks, her fingers digging almost painfully into his scalp. Hips rocking to the rhythm he’s set. He can hear her cries, if muffled, then she freezes as the orgasm crashes over her.

Her grip eases off his head and he pulls away, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand, wondering what exactly would be right thing to say in this situation.

He stands, sliding a hand up to her hip.

Mako’s leaning back on her forearms. Her eyes meet his, and he can see worry there. Then when she closes her eyes and sways slightly. 

And he does gather the courage to ask, heart in his throat. “What is it?” 

“Nothing.” She looks at him, but her vision is unfocused now. “Is something burning?”

An eerie feeling comes over him. “Nothing’s burning.”

Then her eyes roll to the back of her head. He manages to catch her just before she falls from the desk, every inch of her rigid. Once she begins moving, he thinks she’s back, but only for a split second and then a cold chill passes through him. Not her.

The first time he’d seen a seizure was in the Academy. Usually the profiles were detailed enough that any cadets with possible problems with the Pons were swiftly cut, but it was never a hundred percent thing-- which is how one minute cadet Fontangue was bragging about his sim kills and the next he was writhing on the floor.

That’s Mako right now body wracked with convulsions, back arching as if she’s fighting off something unseen, and he can only look on in horror. Time stretches and the hysteria builds into an overwhelming feeling of dread. Her limbs flail, tensing then collapsing with increasing violence. Powerlessness wrenches his insides. Oh god, it’s not stopping, what’s wrong? She’s blue in the face, and he thinks, is she breathing, I did something wrong, it’s not stopping, it won’t stop, please let it stop, it’s not stopping.

She slumps and exhales, loud to his ears, and is motionless. The rush in his ears dies down enough for him to spring into action. He takes her pulse and the relief makes him slightly woozy. Still, he grabs her discarded clothing and dresses her as quickly as his shaking hands will let him. He eases her onto his shoulder, rushing to medical.

“Seizure,” he barks to the lone nurse on standby, who rushes into action. She helps him lay Mako on the cot and says something, but Mako shifts slightly and he stops listening. She starts shaking again and the nurse hits a button, shouting orders.

He looks on mutely as two nurses rush out with their gear, the first jabs Mako with her injection pen. Mako stills.

“What’s her name and position?” the nurse asks. “We’ll inform her superiors.”

The image shimmers a bit.

This is where it began. Her memory.

“Mako Mori,” Raleigh says. He doesn’t need to say any more.

_If you hadn’t told them. If they hadn’t known—_

\--And she’s back to herself. It wasn’t like before, a gradual sinking into Raleigh’s consciousness, now it's just a violent snap, not too different from the shove that wrecked their alignment when they first initiated the handshake. They’re far too deep for the connection to sever from something short of a directed break or some sort of neural anomaly, but the shove still hurts. 

_You blame me_.

 _That’s stupid,_ she retorts. _There’s no way you could have done anything differently_.

_You say that. But it’s not how you feel. And if you were honest with yourself--_

_Don’t. You don’t know everything about me just because you’re in my head_. 

An image pops into her head. It’s her from a distance, Tendo’s explaining something to her and she nods, a serious expression on her face. She can’t make out the content of the conversation, it’s unremarkable, but the wave of…longing that weighs the memory takes her breath away. Because it’s not hers.

Mako feels small and selfish. This is not who I want to be, she thinks.

 _If I piloted without you, it would never be the same. We wouldn’t_. There’s no question there, just a statement of fact. It makes her feel worse. Petty. 

I don’t want to be that person, the thought keeps running through her head like a refrain. _Maybe someday,_ is all she manages to direct at Raleigh.

 _That’s not good enough_.

 _I’m sorry_. She means it, because she would change things. She would want to smile and think that it’s just as good for someone else to be out there. That just as long everyone is safe it doesn’t matter who goes out there. That is the right thing to feel.

 _I’m sorry, too. I should have never let you back in here. If something happens…_ He doesn’t finish the thought, but fear tastes metallic like blood in her mouth. Then it’s gone, the faintest trace of it like a lingering smell of smoke. _So we’re both selfish_.

It isn’t the same at all, but she lets it slide for now. 

\--

LOCCENT comes on a good hour later. 

“Gipsy come in!” Tendo’s voice breaks through the silence.

Mako blinks awake, not even realizing she had fallen asleep. Raleigh’s already working the comm.

“Nice to hear from you, LOCCENT,” he says huskily.

“We deployed a transport to get you back. I see no damage outside of the ordinary, but it says you’ve powered down. How are things? How’s Mako?”

“I’m fine,” she replies. He should have her vitals up at LOCCENT anyway. “We wanted to conserve energy, since we did not know when LOCCENT would be operational. What’s the damage inside the Shatterdome?”

There’s a pause. “It’s not pretty, but we’ll live.” Tendo’s voice lowers. “You guys need to be ready for some fire and brimstone here. Herc got in touch the Marshal and he’s on his way. Raleigh, they also found your copilot.” He raises his voice to normal levels. “I’ll alert medbay to send people for Mako.”

“What about the co—“

“Do that,” Raleigh interrupts sharply.

One of the monitors beeps. _Transport is here_

Tendo knows already from his end. “See you soon, Gipsy.”

 _What happened to your copilot?_ The Gipsy shifts as the cables from the helicopters link up.

 _The sync wasn’t too good_.

 _That is not what I asked_.

The succession of images she gets makes her gasp.

 _Not gonna make much of a difference_ , he says with not a little bit of chagrin. _The Marshal’s still going to lock us up. Well, lock you up, shoot me_. The Gipsy lurches and they’re airborne.

Mako has to nod. _Probably true_.

 _As far as a last hurrah goes, it wasn’t too bad_.

Something deeper than disappointment tugs at her insides. Like she’s not ready to say good-bye yet, not ever. And there’s an answering echo.

 _I couldn’t come back because everything about her reminded me of Yance_.

Mako thinks back to Raleigh telling her of his new copilot. Remembers the feeling of loss every time she looked at him. _You remind me of the Gipsy_.

There’s a faint disappointment there, covered up with understanding. She feels she needs to explain herself. _I knew her first_. Every part of her-- like the Jaeger is hardwired into her DNA. She pulled her out of Oblivion Bay and remade her, circuit by circuit, wire by wire.

They dock inside. The rig is set up and the conn-pod begins its ascent. Raleigh’s worry heightens to a buzz in the back of her mind.

Mako sends some reassurance his way. _It’s been fine until now_. The conn-pod docks, the mechanism goes through it’s prelim check.

 _It wasn’t supposed to be a problem until now_ , he counters as the doors open.

 _It’ll be fine_.

“Techs are on stand-by for med officers,” Tendo announces. “You still with us, Mako?”

“You can see my vitals,” Mako says. “I’m good.”

“Med officers eta in two minutes. I’ll wait for them to check Mako before disengaging neural handshake.”

The worry in the back of her head shows no sign of stopping.

_What’s a booty call?_

The anxiety recedes a bit. Confusion overpowering it for a few seconds. _What?_

“Meds on deck!”

Emergency personnel surround her and Raleigh performing scans. “LOCCENT,” one of them announces. “Everything seems to be clear.”

“Preparing to disengage neural handshake.”

She turns to Raleigh with a smile. 

“Neural handshake disengaged.”

It’s her body awareness that comes back first, the loss of scale, her world becoming narrower. Then a split second later she realizes Raleigh’s absence. The first seconds, it feels wrong, like there’s too much of her. Her neural patterns shift, and she’s back to herself, nothing unnatural about it. 

The medics are still scanning her and she tries to look over their shoulders to catch sight of Raleigh. 

Then there’s a cold feeling in her head that makes her stand still.

“No,” she murmurs. Something’s burning. “No, no, no.”

And just like that she’s gone.


End file.
